Friday was the first round of a heavyweight fight and Texas baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle must have felt like Rocky walking into a Moscow ring to face Ivan Drago.
Texas A&M’s Blue Bell Park was anything but sweet and delicious in his first game there since leaving his College Station post to take the job at Texas less than two days after finishing as the College World Series runner-up two summers ago.
Schlossnagle has done a great job of keeping this thing about baseball over the last couple of seasons and leaving the exterior stuff to people like yours truly but the spectacle was something to behold.
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It’s unlike any baseball environment on Earth with the chants emanating from the stands and the bubbles flying around.
Texas handled itself well but the bloodthirsty hosts got what they wanted and that was Schloss’ head on a figurative platter.
His No. 2 Texas Longhorns suffered a 9-8 knockdown in the opening round but this slugfest promises to go the distance.
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The loss reads just like it happened — q tightly contested back-and-forth volley of body blows that came down to the first team that blinked at crunch time.
It happened to be the Horns, whose bullpen imploded in a murderous sixth inning that was low-lighted by five walks and the Aggies scoring three runs to take the lead for good without getting a hit. Starter Ruger Riojas had his second straight rough outing — he gave up five earned runs in five innings and was tagged with four extra base hits — and the guys behind him weren’t able to provide the pick-me-up.
The coaching staff keeps track of free passes and by their scoring system, the Horns were minus-17 in the fourth straight one-run game these teams have played dating back to Texas’ sweep in Austin last season.
“You’re not going to win games that way,” he said. “I was real proud of the way that the guys competed at home plate but A&M did a much better job of controlling the strike zone as an offense. So kudos to them.”
It didn’t help that nature intervened in the second inning when Texas right fielder Jayden Duplantier lost sight of Boston Kellner’s pop fly in the twilight skies above Blue Bell. It fell in for a leadoff triple, much to the chagrin of the head coach who was doing a dugout interview with the SEC Network broadcast. Schloss has a Gregg Popovich like hatred of in-game interviews and bad things seem to happen when he’s on camera.
“Add this one to the list, guys,” he grumbled to Kyle Peterson and Co.
The good news is the 27-6 Horns, despite a fourth Game 1 loss in five SEC series, displayed the clutch gene offensively and if not for an eighth-inning throwing error on third baseman Casey Borba, who struck out four times in an 0-for-5 nightmare after arriving town on a offensive tear, the Horns had every chance to steal this one, especially after Aiden Robbins and Anthony Pack homered in the ninth to cut the lead to one.
The error, which came on a tough chance, gave the No. 18 Aggies a three-run cushion and just enough insurance to get it done.
The conversations in the visitor’s clubhouse after the game were productive ones. The Horns can win this series and they know it. Lefty Luke Harrison has been a horse as the Saturday starter and Texas’ 20-3 record in his 23 career starts should provide great confidence.
“We just kind of came to an agreement that we just got to keep playing,” said Robbins. “I ride or die with these guys, and that was (Schlossnagle’s) message. I don't think there's anything more to it. We got to play our style of baseball, and at the end of the day, we'll come out as winners.”