I got my first look at the Longhorn baseball team yesterday when I watched game one of their doubleheader against outmatched University of Illinois-Chicago. The final score was 10-1, but it was over after Texas scored 5 runs in the bottom of the first.
Freshman righthander Taylor Jungmann got the start for Texas, and this dude is going to be good. He looks to be about 6’5", is all arms and legs at this point and has an effortless delivery. He most likely didn’t have his best stuff yesterday and had some control problems (umpire didn't help), but he still only allowed a single hit in six innings and had only a handful of pitches that were actually hit hard.
Despite scoring ten runs, the hitting was inconsistent after the first inning. But they were able to execute every bunt they attempted, and last year they couldn’t even do that. They also had a couple of sacrifice flies that they had trouble getting last year. So they look to have improved on a couple of important things in their small ball offense.
Kevin Keyes hit the ball hard. He had what would have been a home run to right knocked down by the wind at the warning track, and he also lined out to the warning track in left. It was only the first game, but he didn’t have any of the brutal at bats he had at times last year. Brandon Belt is very patient at the plate, and he can take pitches to the opposite field.
Defensively they looked pretty solid, but again there were only a handful of hard hit balls and the wind was knocking down everything in the outfield. Freshman Brandon Loy made a nice backhanded stop at third base, but other than that most everything was routine. Shortstop David Hernandez did make a fielding error, but there was no breakdown defensively.
ChrisApplewhite watched the second game of the doubleheader so he can chime in with his thoughts later.