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Rice Baseball: 2022 MLB Owls preseason roundup

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Rice baseball alums will take the diamond in the weeks to come as the 2022 season draws near. Here’s the latest on each of these MLB Owls.

Glen Otto – Texas Rangers

Otto was shipped from New York to Texas in a deadline deal between the Yankees and Rangers last season. He made his major league debut shortly after against the Astros, throwing five scoreless innings, striking out seven and allowing two hits.

He finished his debut season with a 9.26 ERA and a 1.714 WHIP. He struck out 28 batters across 23.1 innings, averaging 10.8 punchouts per nine innings. Early reports indicate h could be in the mix for one of the Rangers’ spots in the starting rotation this year.

Anthony Rendon – Los Angeles Angels

Hip surgery stole the majority of Anthony Rendon’s 2021 season. He appeared in 58 games before being shut down, the fewest outings (in any full 162-game season) of his professional career. Prior to the injury. Rendon was hitting .240 with a .712 OPS. He had 34 RBI in between stints on and off the injured list.

Rendon spoke with the media at the beginning of camp, addressing what it was like dealing with injury and looking forward to the season:

Tyler Duffey – Minnesota Twins

Duffey frequently worked as a set-up man in the seventh and eighth innings last season, setting a career-high in appearances with 64 outings while compiling a 3.18 ERA with a career-best three saves. He’s set to hit free agency following the 2022 season and could use a bounce-back campaign after seeing his strikeouts rates and walk rates go the wrong direction last year.

In the meantime, Duffey is enjoying the clubhouse this spring. “It seems like every day this week there’s been new faces overnight that have showed up and they’re all good ones,” he told Twins reporter Do-Hyoung Park. “It’s an exciting time. It’s one of the more memorable springs I can remember being here.”

Lucas Luetge – New York Yankees

Pitching in the majors for the first time since 2015, Luetge enjoyed an incredible resurgence last season. He made one start and 56 additional appearances as a reliever, ending the season with a 2.74 ERA and 78 strikeouts compared to just 15 walks.

Luetge is set to return to the Yankees bullpen once again this season where he’ll slide into his role as a middle reliever with the flexibility to go multiple innings when needed.

J.T. Chargois – Tampa Bay Rays

After spending the 2020 season overseas playing in Japan, Chargois made his way back to the MLB last year. He spent the first half of the 2021 season with the Mariners before being traded to the Rays at the deadline.

Chargois boasted a 1.90 ERA after he was moved, and struck out a total of 53 battlers in 53.2 innings across both organizations. He’s expected to be a quality option in the Rays dugout once again this season.

Jon Duplantier – Los Angeles Dodgers (m)

Selected by the Dodgers from the Diamondbacks in the Rule 5 Draft in December, Duplantier was a non-roster invite to big league spring training this month.

Duplantier made four major league appearances in 2021, finishing the year with an 0-3 record and a 13.15 ERA. He struck out 12 batters and allowed 19 hits before an injury sidelined him for the remainder of the season in July.

Brock Holt – Atlanta Braves (m)

Signed to a minor-league deal this week, Holt will get a shot with the defending World Series champs. After beginning his major league career a seven-season in Boston with the Red Sox, Holt has played for the Brewers, Nationals and Rangers over the course of the last two seasons.

Holt manned third base for the Rangers in 2021, making 57 starts and appearing in 76 games. He hit .209 on the season with 23 RBI and 16 extra-base hits.

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The Roost Podcast | Ep 107 – Rice Football spring practice and JP Heath

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Rice Football returned to the field for spring practices this week. We react to the latest news and meander through Rice Athletics with JP Heath.

The second week of Rice football spring practice offers plenty to discuss, as well as does some unfortunate transfer news that broke shortly after our last podcast. Carter and Matthew dive into that before stepping back to welcome the first guest of the spring, Rice Owls Voice JP Heath.

Finally free from pulling double-duty between Rice basketball and Rice baseball, JP joins us to discuss the end of the men’s basketball season and share some early reactions from the beginning of the Jose Cruz Jr. era at Reckling Park.

You can find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 107.

Episode Notes

  • Housekeeping
    • Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice. Every little bit helps.
    • Please support us on Patreon. Be the first to get the inside scoop on what’s going on with Rice football and stick around for even further analysis. That includes updates from spring practices and more. Your support matters and makes The Roost better.
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  • 2022 Rice Football Spring Camp
  • JP Heath joins the show
    • Making sense of an injury-plagued men’s basketball season
    • Early thoughts on Rice baseball in the Jose Cruz Jr. era
    • JP’s memorable broadcasting moments at Rice and elsewhere

Where can you find us?

Download and subscribe to The Roost Podcast on any of your favorite podcast providers. The show is available on iTunes, GooglePlay, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn and PodBean. Please consider leaving a review wherever you listen.

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Rice Baseball 2022: Midseason State of the Program

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Rice Baseball is more than a month into the 2022 season. Here’s where the program stands and what’s next for the Owls on the diamond this spring.

With one week of conference play already in the books and roughly 40 percent of the season complete, we’re finally starting to discover just what kind of team Rice baseball is becoming. The Owls own a 6-16 record but have won three of their last six and have played much better baseball as of late.

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Rice baseball head coach Jose Cruz Jr. says the team is “still creating a bit of a culture of what’s expected,” but remains encouraged by the progress he’s seen so far. In this midseason State of the Program, we’ll look at the highs, lows and everything in-between as we attempt to explain where Rice baseball is right now — and more importantly — where it might be going.

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Texas A&M outlasts Rice Baseball in marathon midweek game

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Rice baseball and Texas A&M played a marathon midweek game into the late hours of Tuesday night which went the way of the Aggies when it finally wound down.

It was clear from the start this wasn’t going to be a quick midweek reunion for two Lone Star state rivals. The last time Rice baseball and Texas A&M had met at Reckling Park had been their final game of the 2020 season before COVID-19 shut the sports world down later that week. Both teams made up for the long break with a four-hour, 27-minute ballgame, the longest of the season for the Owls.

Rice opened the scoring in the bottom of the first, courtesy of a wild pitch that allowed Austin Bulman to score from third, but not until seven Owls had come to the plate and Texas A&M had made a pitching change. Texas A&M would answer in the next frame, scoring four and forcing Rice to make a pitching change of their own.

The first two innings alone lasted more than an hour. Things wouldn’t speed up too much after that. Both squads would combine for four home runs, 23 total runs, 25 hits and 13 walks, providing plenty of traffic on the basepaths and very few short innings. 15 combined pitchers appeared in the nine-inning game.

For about half an hour, it felt like Texas A&M had broken things open with a fourth-inning grand slam that gave the visitors an 8-2 lead at the time. Despite the deficit, Rice baseball resolved to keep chipping away

Last Time Out : Takeaways from 2-1 Series Loss to UAB

The Owls scratched across a pair across to start the bottom half of the fourth inning. Then Nathan Becker delivered a bases-clearing double to get Rice within one. Benjamin Rosengard drove in the equalizer on the next at bat. Two and a half hours after they’d started, it was a brand new ball game.

Texas A&M would gain further margin down the stretch, tacking on six more runs over the course of the next two hours of action. Rice threatened on several occasions but was unable to produce a second six-run rally, falling at home by the final score of 15-8.

What it means | Rice can hang

Rice baseball doesn’t have the luxury of throwing out the first month of the regular season, but it’s abundantly clear they aren’t letting the rocky start linger. The Owls did enough over the course of the past week to prove they’ve got what it takes to turn things around start winning some baseball games. During Tuesday’s marathon, they proved they belonged.

Texas A&M came to Houston fresh off a weekend series win over No. 8 LSU. The Aggies aren’t a perfect team by any means and midweek bullpen games can get squirrely — this one did — but after Rice erased a six-run deficit and hung around with a variety of bullpen arms, it sure felt like the Owls were every bit the equal of the team visiting from College Station.

Rice spotted Texas A&M four runs after loading in the fourth, allowing the Aggies to load the bases without a hit, then ceding a grand slam. They dropped multiple balls in the outfield, although only one counted as an error. Even still, it wasn’t until Texas A&M put up a three-spot in the eighth to extend their lead to 14-8 that things truly felt somewhat secure.

For the better part of four hours, Rice baseball hung around. And if Rice can hang with Texas A&M, they can hang with Marshall, FAU and everyone else on their schedule.

ON DECK | Marshall

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Rice Football 2022 Spring Practice Notebook 2: Depth Chart

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The first Rice football depth chart of the spring has been released featuring several shakeups across the board at a variety of positions.

So the saying goes, a depth chart is worth the price of the paper it’s printed on. If that’s how we feel about these prescribed lineups in the regular season, we ought to put much less stock in their scribbles in the spring. It’s with that important caveat I share the first Rice football depth chart of the spring.

More: Rice Football Spring Notebook 1 – Introductions

There are a few things we can glean from these tiered position groupings, starting with who isn’t listed on the roster and venturing to the host of new faces that are cracking a Rice two-deep for the first time in their careers. And that’s before reinforcements show up in the form of graduate transfers this summer. With that in mind, here are five important takeaways from the Rice football spring depth chart.

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For those checking in for the first time, or those returning, a quick programming note. Special updates like this are reserved for our subscribers. Get access to all practice notes, features and more insights like this one when you subscribe on Patreon today.

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