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Baseball: Coach Matt Bragga undeterred by his toughest test yet

February 25, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

Rice baseball had a rough start to the 2019 season, but head coach Matt Bragga is keeping the faith this team and this program can be something special.

It’s been a long time since 2003 for Rice baseball. The Owls would return to Omaha three times following their first College World Series title that remarkable season, most recently in 2008. But then things started to slow down at South Main. It came time to find the next leader who would carry what had become a mainstay program in college baseball back to the promised land.

That’s why Matt Bragga was hired. He was hired to bring another championship back to Houston.

And that’s why the first two weeks of the 2019 season have stung so much.

“It’s just not good enough. That’s a good team, but we shot ourselves in the foot multiple times over the course of the weekend as we did on Tuesday and Wednesday,” Bragga said following a three-game sweep at Reckling Park at the hands of UC Irvine. “We’re just not a good enough baseball team right now, and that’s my job as a coach to try to make us better and get as much out of these guys as we possibly can.”

More: Takeaways from Rice baseball’s home series loss to UC Irvine

In many respects, his summary is spot on. This is not a good enough baseball team right now.

On the mound, Rice pitchers are falling behind into less-than-favorable counts. They’re not being aggressive. At the plate the hitters are swinging at bad pitches, taking poor approaches with two strikes and failing to make adjustments at the plate over the course of a series. The defense, which has now accumulated 24 errors in eight games, needs to make more plays.

That list comes straight from the head man himself. Bragga meticulously spelled out the litany of issues following the third loss of the weekend to a UC Irvine team ranked in the Top 25 of some national polls. He summed it up with an all-encompassing decree, “we have to play better baseball.”

Rice baseball
Head Coach Matt Bragga introduced by AD Joe Karlgaard.

Perhaps he could take a page out of Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren’s book. Bloomgren came to South Main with a similar mandate: restore a winning tradition at Rice. What Bloomgren found out, and Bragga is currently experiencing, is the challenge of taking a program which had fallen on hard times back to relevancy is hard.

Following the football program’s loss to previously winless UTEP, Bloomgren remarked, somewhat in dismay, “I never thought I would be associated with a team that has had this little success.”

It’s hard to determine if that was the lowest low point of a challenging season on the gridiron, but there’s no denying the team Bloomgren’s unit finished the year on a high note, defeating Old Dominion in emphatic fashion. The inkings of a turnaround are finally present, but it took time. There are no shortcuts.

Hard, but not impossible

Bragga calls himself a straight shooter. He didn’t beat around the bush after his team fell to 2-6 on the season. “There’s more of a challenge [at Rice] than I probably envisioned,” he admitted. “But that’s okay. That’s why you coach, for challenges, and trying to overcome those challenges.”

Whether Bragga underestimated the challenge or not, his task hasn’t changed. His attitude remains unwavering. “I have belief in these guys,” he said confidently,” I think this could still be a really good team and I’m certainly not going to give up on them after eight games.” With at least 48 more to play in the 2019 season, Bragga will have plenty more opportunities to make that dream become a reality. Those aspirations will continue on to 2020 and beyond, too.

I have belief in these guys. I think this could still be a really good team and I’m certainly not going to give up on them after eight games.Matt Bragga

Baseball is hard. It’s a game built on failure and rooted in daily mental battles with oneself. There’s no doubt Rice baseball got punched in the mouth at the start of the 2019 season, but there’s also no reason to write off a strategic investment made by both the administration and by Bragga after two rough weeks, not yet.

Hope remains

As he walked off the field toward his office in the inner workings of Reckling Park, Bragga made one barely audible comment which resonated back out toward the field to scattered players and media standing on the dugout steps. “We’ll get it. I promise you, we’ll get it.”

Yes, it’s back to the drawing board for coach Bragga and the 2019 Rice baseball team. But this coach is a long way from throwing in the towel, and that’s why he’s here. Bragga was hired for more than two weeks of baseball. His legacy at Rice is only just beginning. Let’s allow him to play it out.

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Rice Baseball: All phases sputter as UC Irvine sweeps Owls at home

February 24, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

Shaky pitching, fielding and offense resulted in Rice baseball being swept by UC Irvine, the first series sweep against the Owls under Matt Bragga.

There’s no doubt the Rice baseball team is experiencing some growing pains as the team adjusts to life under new head coach Matt Bragga. Getting the pitching, fielding and hitting in sync has been an issue for the squad through the first two weeks of non-conference play. The results on the field reflect the disjointed start as the Owls fell short in their weekend series against UC Irvine, dropping their overall record to 2-6.

UC Irvine edged Rice in the series three games to none. Here’s a rundown of the series with three final thoughts from the weekend.

FRIDAY | UC Irvine 11, Rice 5

Entering the weekend, Rice pitching had allowed two home runs all season. Owls’ ace Matt Canterino surpassed that mark in five innings, allowing three home runs, two UC Irvine second baseman Brendan Brooks. Even though they fell behind early, Rice battled back. In the home half of the fifth inning after Canterino was pulled, Rice squeezed the deficit back to one run.

Relief pitcher Jackson Tyner was instrumental in the Owls’ comeback bid. In 2.1 innings he stuck out five, walking one and allowing no hits. His secondary stuff had plenty of movement, keeping opposing hitters off balance for the duration of his outing.

Able to push a few more runs across throughout the game, Rice trailed 6-5 from the sixth inning to the ninth. With three outs separating Rice from a comeback bid, UC Irvine exploded for five runs. Instead of trying to mount a comeback from a one-run deficit, Rice found themselves trailing 11-5 in the final half inning. The Owls would give it a shot, but come up empty.

SATURDAY | UC Irvine 7, Rice 0

It wasn’t an offensive assault which forced the Owls to play behind on Saturday, it was a few big hits surrendered by some of their most reliable arms. TWo long balls, both surrendered by Rice starter Evan Kravetz, spotted UC Irvine to a 3-0 lead in the top of the third inning.

The three-run lead would prove to be enough. Rice had a season-low four hits scattered across nine innings. Back-to-back inning-ending double plays, one in the third and the other in the fourth further dampened any comeback attempt. By the time the ninth inning rolled around, it was a 7-0 lead for the road team. That result would hold final as Rice was retired in order for the third time that day.

SUNDAY | UC Irvine 11, Rice 4

Things started off quiet at the plate for Rice on Sunday. UC Irvine scratched two runs in the first two innings on two hits against Jackson Parthasarathy. The dam broke in the sixth with UC Irving scoring five runs to open up a 9-0 lead over the home team.

Facing a significant deficit, the Rice bats woke up. Trei Cruz opened the inning with a home run to right center, his third of the season. A cavalcade of hits followed, vanquishing reliever Michael Frias from the inning after two outs. Rice would score four runs on five hits, cutting the deficit to 9-4.

Rice had another opportunity in the seventh, loading the bases with no outs. A double play and a strikeout ended the frame, thus snuffing out the chance to put another crooked number on the board. From there,  UC Irvine tacked on two more runs

TAKEAWAYS | UC Irvine wins series 3-0

1. EEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Errors, errors and more errors. The Owls fielding mishaps have haunted them throughout the young season. With the series against UC Irvine in the books, Rice has committed 24 errors over eight games, a pace of three errors per game.

There’s something to be said for early season jitters, of which Rice is no stranger. Rice committed 14 errors over their first eight games of last season (1.75 per game), going 3-5 over that span. Over the course of the 59-game season that rate fell to 1.22 errors per game — not stellar, but proof that a bad two weeks of baseball isn’t a season-ending curse.

The same goes for troubles at the plate. Rice has been charged with 11 wild pitches on the young season.

The 2019 squad has plenty of baseball still to play, but something needs to change in the midst of a busy several weeks. The Owls will play nine games in 12 days starting with a midweek contest against Prairie View A&M. There won’t be much practice time to speak of, making the need for a mental adjustment from several members of the team absolutely critical.

2. Situational hitting

In addition to the fielding concerns, Rice needs to work on their production at the plate in pivotal moments. Rice had 22 official at bats with at least one runner in scoring position against UC Irvine. They had two hits, both of which came on Sunday. It’s almost unthinkable Rice could find themselves with 11 such opportunities with their ace on the mound on a Friday night, score five runs and still lose, but it happened.

Trei Cruz is hitting .600 this season with runners in scoring position. That’s an incredible pace that leads the team by a significant margin. Bradley Gneiting is second-best in those situations hitting .333 and Brandt Frazier sports a .286 clip.

No other regular player is hitting better than .250. In fact, most are hitting well below .200 including Braden Comeaux (.083), Dominic DiCaprio (.167) and Antonio Cruz (.167). It’s early in the season, so those sample sizes are drastically too small to draw any meaningful conclusions from, but there’s no doubting the numbers are alarming.

3. Bright spots at the plate and on the mound

Trei Cruz was incredible during opening weekend, but it was readily apparent the Owls would need some other faces to step up at the plate to make this offense productive. Cruz didn’t have any 9-RBI games this weekend, affording plenty of opportunities for someone else to step up and spur on the Rice offense.

Comeaux had his best stretch of games this season, surpassing his four hits over the first five games with five base knocks in the three-game series with UC Irvine. Antonio Cruz hit his first collegiate home run. The rest of the offense was sparse, resulting in just nine runs scored by Rice over the weekend.

On the mound, Jackson Tyner stole the show. A two-sport athlete who played quarterback with the Rice football team in the fall, Tyner was dynamic out of the pen. He entered the game Friday night in relief of Canterino and shut UC Irvine down through 2.1 innings pitched, striking out five of the 10 batters he faced.

Brandon Deskins worked a scoreless inning in relief, as did Ben Schragger. Addison Moss made his season debut, throwing 1.2 innings while allowing two hits, two walks and striking out two on Sunday. His three runs allowed were all unearned by way of two fielding errors by Trei Cruz at shortstop.

ON DECK | vs Prairie View A&M (Wed), vs Texas State (Fri), vs Baylor (Sat), vs TCU (Sun)

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Baseball: Previewing the UC Irvine series

February 22, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

Rice baseball looks to rebound from a pair of midweek losses with a second straight weekend series win. Next, the Owls take on UC Irvine at home.

Listen online // Watch Friday (CUSA TV) // Watch Saturday (CUSA TV) // Watch Sunday (CUSA TV)

The UC Irvine Anteaters head east to Texas to play their first weekend series away from home this season. The fringe Top 25 club took two of three from Washington on opening weekend before falling to San Diego State on the road on Tuesday. Their record sits at 2-2.

Rice enters the series 2-3, losers of the past two games to a pair of college baseball powers, first Texas and then Arizona. The winner of this series will leave the weekend no worse than .500, an important distinction with so many high-caliber non-conference games still to play for both squads.

Projected Pitching Matchups

Friday – 6:30 pm: Matt Canterino (0-0, 0.00) vs Andre Pallante (0-1, 3.86)
Saturday – 2:00 pm: Evan Kravetz (0-0, 0.00) vs  Tanner Brubaker (0-0, 1.59)
Sunday – 1:00 pm: Jackson Parthasarathy (1-0, 0.00) vs  Trenton Denholm (0-0, 4.50)

UC Irvine Pitching

So far the knock on weekend starters Pallante, Brubaker and Denholm has been their longevity. None of the trio made it through the sixth inning. They’ve each been effective in shorter bursts, but if continued short outings will put added pressure on their bullpen, which has performed well up to this point.

Taylor Rashi will be the anchor on the back end. The senior righty is the only UCI pitcher to allow no hits or walks in multiple appearances. His five strikeouts are two shy of the team lead, but he got them in two innings compared to Denholm’s four frames.

Michael Frias and Ryan Johnston will see action out of the pen. John Vergara, if he can find the zone, has the potential to be dangerous against a Rice team which has proven susceptible at the plate so far this season.

UC Irving Hitting

Like Rice to some extent, UC Irvine has left plenty of opportunity at the plate. Third baseman Brandon Lewis has had the best start on the team so far, but aside from his two home runs, he’s only reached base on two other occasions. From a batting average perspective, Second baseman Brendan Brooks leads the team with a ,286 clip, but he’s only managed four hits on the young season.

Nobody in this lineup is particularly fearsome, but they have proven to be relatively patient at the plate, sometimes to a fault. The team has reached base 17 times via the walk, but have accumulated 42 strikeouts in four games. Shortstop Christian Koss is the chief offender, whiffing seven times in 14 appearances.

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Baseball: Defensive woes crush Owls in midweek loss to Arizona

February 20, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

Rice baseball concluded a tough midweek set on Wednesday, dropping a somewhat uncompetitive home game to visiting Arizona at Reckling Park.

Defensive lapses put Rice baseball into an insurmountable hole against Texas on Tuesday night, a contest the Owls dropped 11-4. They returned to the diamond for a second midweek contest, this time against Arizona.

Arizona struck first, and second and third. The visitors tallied single runs in the first three frames, putting the Owls into an early hole once again.

The Rice pitchers played with fire all night, as Arizona loaded the bases in the first, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth innings. The breakthrough came in the sixth against Brandon Deskins. After striking out the side in his first appearance of the year, Arizona roughed him up, scoring three to blast the game wide open, 8-1.

To that point, Rice had managed one run. It came off an RBI single from Dominic DiCaprio in the fourth, his first hit of the season. The Owls cut the deficit to 8-2 in the bottom of the sixth, but that’s as close as the team would get for the duration of the contest, falling by a final score of Arizona 16, Rice 5.

Here are a few things which stood out from the loss:

Takeaways

1. Time to get back to the basics

The eight errors committed by Rice were one shy of the school record, 10, set against UNLV in 1997. Rice committed nine runs in their first four games, but had eight registered mistakes against Arizona alone. It’s not as if one guy was throwing the ball recklessly around the yard, the bulk of the team had at least one error charge to them on Wednesday. If you can’t throw and catch, you can’t win baseball games.

Coach Matt Bragga compared the defensive struggles to “little league” play in the aftermath of the Texas loss on Tuesday. If that’s the case, this team has a lot of work to do before conference play arrives.

2. This team misses Addison Moss

The starts from Drake Greenwood and Kel Bordwine during the Owls’ midweek games were decidedly mediocre. Both guys competed moderately well and were serviceable outside of a few fielding errors which negatively impacted their final lines.

Evan Kravetz was masterful in his spot start Saturday against Rhode Island, but his insertion into the weekend rotation forced him out of a midweek rotation spot, at least for now.

Having Kravetz on Tuesday will make Greenwood and Bordwine available to start Wednesday or come out of the bullpen. It gives coach Bragga options. Without Moss, this rotation looks thin — Rice needs him back as soon as he’s healthy.

3. Trei Cruz needs some help

So far, Trei Cruz is the pacemaker which keeps this offense churning. When he’s locked in, he sends a pulse throughout the entire lineup. It doesn’t mean the others in the batting order have come alive on cue, but without his presence, the offense has flatlined.

Cruz did his part on Wednesday, going 1-for-2 with a run scored before being lifted late in the game. Consistent producers to this point, Cade Edwards, Justin Collins and Bradley Gneiting went a combined 1-for-9 on the evening. Braden Comeaux’s hitless night dropped his season average to .182.

The season is young and someone will have to step up. The question is, who?

4. Position battles continue to rage on

Dominic Cox opened the season in center field for the Owls but his string of less-than-impressive plate appearances opened the door for someone else to have their shot. Aaron Beaulaurier hadn’t registered a hit yet in 2019, but his two doubles against Arizona were some of the best hitting from the Owls all evening. It’s safe to say that spot in the lineup is up for grabs.

Beyond centerfield, designated hitter and first base remain question marks. Andrew Dunlap is still looking for his first hit of the season while Dominic DiCaprio earned his first knock against Arizona. Outside of the heart of the order — Bradley Gneiting, Trei Cruz, Justin Collins and Cade Edwards — the rest of the lineup remains in flux.

ON DECK | vs UC-Irvine (Fri.-Sun.)

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Baseball: Previewing Wednesday matchup vs Arizona

February 20, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

The opening stretch of home games at Reckling Park for Rice baseball continues Wednesday when the Owls welcome Arizona to Houston.

Winners of a four-game series against UMass Lowell over the weekend, Arizona will head east to play a set of four games in Texas. Their first matchup will is Wednesday night at Reckling Park against Rice before traveling down the road to play a three-game weekend series against Houston.

Rice and Arizona aren’t strangers on the diamond. The two teams met in the 2015 and 2016 season. Rice won the first series in Tucson 2-1. Arizona answered back the following year, taking the return series 2-1 in Houston. This is the second midweek game for Rice this week, who fell to Texas in a water-logged Tuesday night contest.

When and Where

  • Wednesday, Feb. 19 at 6:30 p.m. CT
  • Watch: CUSA TV
  • Listen: Stretch Radio

Pitching matchups

Rice has thrown several arms through four games and has options Wednesday night against Arizona. If coach Matt Bragga opts to give starter Addison Moss a few more days of rest the Owls could turn to one of their arms out of the pen to toe the rubber against Arizona.

Zach Esquivel and Kendal Jeffries both started games at various points throughout the 2018 campaign. Evan Kravetz, who pitched well in lieu of Moss on Saturday, could be bumped up to a midweek role in anticipation of the return of the Owls’ second ace.

Arizona hasn’t named a starter either. The Wildcats’ bullpen saw mixed results against UM Lowell. No reliever managed better than four strikeouts while walks were prevalent. Both Cameron Haskell and Randy Abshier have picked up saves. Rice could see either of them, or both, if the game stays close in the late innings.

Names to know from the plate

The top half of the Arizona order features some of the most dangerous hitters Rice will see in the early portion of their schedule. Leadoff hitter Cameron Cannon and second man Matt Frazier each collected eight hits during their opening series, scoring a combined 19 runs between them. Following right behind them will be Ryan Holgate who blasted three home runs and 12 RBI in his first four games.

Like Texas on Tueday, Arizona has plenty of talent in their lineup. The Owls had best be ready on the mound for another tough midweek test.

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Filed Under: Baseball Tagged With: Rice baseball

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