Pitching, defense and the three runs off homers. That strategy worked perfectly for TCU yesterday, and they've now forced a winner take all game three tonight.
Whenever you make a mistake to one of TCU's 2-3-4 hitters, they hit a home run. It's really that simple. They've combined for 10 of TCU's fourteen hits in the series, and they've hit all five of their home runs and driven in all seven of their runs. The rest of their lineup is 4-41 against Texas pitching. Quite remarkable actually.
Cole Green pitched well enough to win. He went 7 1/3 only giving up three runs. He had a fantastic breaking ball for most of the game, and the two hits he gave up in the fourth were on 1-2 pitches. Michael Torres ole'd a hard hit grounder to third that was ruled a hit, and that may have been the deciding run. One batter later TCU's Matt Vern hit his second home run of the series.
TCU starter Paul Gerrish dominated Texas hitters by throwing strikes, getting ahead in the count and hitting his target. The guy had maybe two pitches, but Texas hitters couldn't do anything against him. He was able to jam right handers with the movement on his fastball, and then he got them to chase a lot of balls off the outside corner with his slider. He threw that pitch a lot with two strikes.
Texas didn't even have the opportunity to bunt until the sixth inning when they finally got their leadoff man aboard. But Torres popped hit bunt attempt up to the first baseman. They executed that same play seven times on Saturday. Went 0-1 yesterday.
So now it all comes down to one game. Texas will go with Taylor Jungmann, and he did not pitch well in his last outing. TCU will start Tyler Lockwood who is 4-1 on the year with a 4.41 ERA (3.86 in conference).