With no run-rule in place, Rice baseball blasted past Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday night, putting the game out of reach early before piling on 18 runs.
Paul Smith set the tone for an explosive night for Rice baseball on offense as they wrapped up their current homestand against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Smith put the third pitch he saw over the fence, driving in JC Davis to give the Owls an early 2-0 lead.
Trey Duffield and Cole Green combined to double the advantage the next inning with RBI of their own, only to see the Islanders finally get to the Owls’ starter Ty Baker, scoring three runs to climb back within one run. The close game wouldn’t be close for long.
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Rice exploded for three runs in the fourth and four in the fifth, catapulting ahead 11-3 before adding one more run in the sixth and four more in the seventh. That put Rice in front by 11, but with no run-rule agreed upon before the game, the Owls kept the runs coming, racking up a season-high 18 before the final pitch was thrown.
The Owls scored in every inning but the third on their way to a 18-4 victory. Marco Fuentes, DC Brown and Logan Voelz each tossed scoreless innings in relief.
What it means | The bats are still there
Rice baseball scored nine runs in the previous four games entering their Tuesday night tilt with the Islanders. This time, they’d surpassed that total before the fifth inning was over.
While the 14-17 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi probably isn’t on par with the buzzsaw that UTSA has been, the Islanders lost a midweek game to the Roadrunners 3-1 in mid-March, which is much closer than the Owls’ 23-3 aggregate margin of defeat over the weekend.
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The Owls have shown more upside with the bats this season than they did last spring. The consistency isn’t where it needs to be, clearly, but the upside is still enough to produce a blowout result. Rice collected a season-high 20 hits against the Islanders. The bats are in there. They just need to show up on the weekends, too.