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Rice Baseball: 2022 MLB Owls update – Apr 13

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The 2022 MLB season is underway and Rice baseball alums are busy on the mound and at the plate. Here’s the latest from the MLB Owls.

Anthony Rendon – Los Angeles Angles

It was a slower start for Anthony Rendon in his return to the diamond after missing extended time last season. He collected his first hit and his first run in his second game. On Monday, he hit his first home run of the season, collecting his first two RBI.

His glove hasn’t missed a step, though. Rendon has flashed leather already several times in the young season.

Through April 13, Rendon is hitting .118 with one extra-base hit, two walks and six strikeouts. His OPS is .505 and he’s collected two RBI.

Tyler Duffey – Minnesota Twins

Duffey has had two very different outings this season. His first came on Saturday, where he blew a save and was saddled with a loss against the Mariners, giving up three hits and two runs in the ninth inning. His second appearance was much better, a scoreless seventh inning with one strikeout on Monday.

Even with that down performance in the ninth, Duffey owns a 1.33 career ERA in the ninth inning, only allowing three earned runs in 20.1 innings of work while striking out 24.

Through April 13, Duffey has a 9.00 ERA with a 2.000 WHIP. He’s averaging 9.0 strikeouts per nine innings.

Lucas Luetge – New York Yankees

Luetge picked up his first win of the season in his first appearance, tossing a scoreless sixth inning against the Red Sox on Saturday with two strikeouts. He saw additional action on Sunday, striking out one in a scoreless seventh inning.

Through April 13, Luetge has a 0.00 ERA with a 0.500 WHIP. He’s averaging 13.5 strikeouts per nine innings.

J.T. Chargois – Tampa Bay Rays

Chargois entered his only game so far on Friday in the fifth inning with a runner on base and one out, tasked with protecting a one-run lead. He did his job quickly, inducing a groundout to second before striking out the next batter to end the frame.

Unfortunately, that might be the last time we see Chargois for some time. He was placed on the injured list on April 12 (retroactive to April 9) with left oblique tightness, something which could sideline him for several weeks depending on the severity.

Through April 13, Chargois has a 0.00 ERA with a 0.000 WHIP. He’s averaging 13.5 strikeouts per nine innings.

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Rice Baseball sweeps season series with road win over SHSU

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The Rice baseball bullpen stood stall, collectively holding Sam Houston at bay to earn a series sweep of the Bearkats this season.

For the second time this season, Rice baseball notched a victory over Sam Houston. The Owls entered the game as winners of one of their last nine and left Hunstville with one of their more well-rounded performances of the season.

Hot-hitting Jack Riedel opened the game with a double to right-center field before he and Guy Garibay (who had walked) were driven in by Aaron Smigelski who smoked a ball down the right-field line for a double of his own. Staked to a 2-0 lead, Rice trusted their bullpen to piece together enough outs for the midweek win.

Last Time Out : Takeaways from Rice baseball sweep by LA Tech

Mark Perkins got the start and went two and two-thirds innings, allowing the only run of the night surrendered by Rice pitching on a double to the last batter he faced in the game. After he exited in the third inning, a combination of David Shaw, Roel Garcia, Brandon Deskins and Matthew Linskey combined for 10 strikeouts and just three hits over the remaining six and one-third innings.

Shaw was credited with the win. He left the game after the fifth inning with a 3-1 lead, a score which would endure for several more frames before Hal Hughes added two more insurance runs on a double in the top of the eighth. Rice would go on to win 5-1.

What it means | Beating good baseball teams

Sam Houston is a good baseball team. The Bearkats entered the game 12-4 at home and 19-12 overall with wins over Oklahoma State, Baylor and Texas State. Anything can happen in a midweek game in April — college baseball is known for its oddities — but the Owls’ win didn’t feel fluky at all, especially considering this is the second time this season Rice has beaten Sam Houston.

The rest of the Owls’ list of victories might not look as impressive on paper. Rice was blasted by Baylor earlier this season and has been swept in back-to-back weekends by some of the better teams in Conference USA. When the competition has been at its best, this team has struggled. And that’s what makes wins like this one more meaningful.

“I think this is the best game overall we’ve had all year, from top to bottom” head coach Jose Cruz Jr. said.

If you can beat good teams, you can beat anyone. Doing it consistently separates the good from the great. Rice baseball still has a ways to go to reach that mark, but they did all they could control tonight. They’ll get three more games this weekend against another good baseball team in UTSA. If they’ve really turned a corner they’ll have another chance to put that on display soon.

ON DECK | vs UTSA (Fri-Sun)

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Strong starting pitching not enough as Rice baseball was swept at LA Tech

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Rice Baseball was swept for the second-straight weekend, this time falling in three straight games to Louisiana Tech on the road.

THREE FOR THE ROAD | Rice baseball drops series 3-0

The decent down the standings continued this weekend for Rice baseball, who dropped another three-game series in conference play to reach a 3-9 conference record. The Owls have showed flashes, but weren’t able to combine the arms and the bats in the same way they did in a midweek blowout of Houston Baptist.

It was a tough result, with some good and bad mixed in. Here are a few takeaways from the weekend.

1. Counting on Cooper Chandler

Cooper Chandler got off to a rocky start with Rice baseball. He walked away from his first two starts with a 10.80 ERA, failing to get out of the fourth inning. Despite the poor numbers, head coach Jose Cruz Jr. was adamant Chandler was going to the Owls’ Friday night guy. Cruz Jr. said Chandler was “competing well” and “unlucky”, trusting his veteran hurler to stick it out and turn things around.

Half a season later, Chandler has cut his ERA in half, trimming it to 5.36. Perhaps even more impressive, he’s posted a quality start (six innings pitched with three of fewer runs allowed) in three of his last four appearances. The front runner of a team that has been desperately searching for consistency on the mound, Chandler has been a beacon of that in recent weeks.

Last Time Out: Rice baseball pummels HBU in midweek blowout

Since the Lamar game on Feb. 25, Chandler has allowed more than three runs in an outing just once. He’s posted more strikeouts than innings pitched in five of his six starts over that span. He’s been great. And Rice baseball is better for it. Hat tip to coach, he definitely got this one right.

2. Big hits can’t mask lineup struggles

As a team, Rice baseball holds a .254 combined batting average. That’s the 11th best in Conference USA, better than bottom-dwelling FIU by just seven points. The Owls rank in the bottom half of the league in doubles, home runs and RBI. They’re 11th in slugging percentage and ninth in on-base percentage. They’ve consistently drawn walks at a high clip, but the rest of the numbers are sobering.

And that’s why Rice puts up threes and ones in the run column against teams like Louisiana Tech. Rice had at least four hits combined from the top four spots in the order in every game this series. The bottom five hitters never combined for more than four base knocks in a game.

The lineup has skewed top-heavy this season, but it was abundantly clear this weekend when four players — Jack Riedel, Austin Bulman, Aaron Smigelski and Pierce Gallo — accounted for every RBI of the series. That’s not a winning formula and the numbers bear that out.

3. Hanging Tough

Louisiana Tech was one of the tougher opponents on the Rice baseball schedule this season. Being swept by the bulldogs, who are now 9-3 in conference play and 16-4 at home this year with two midweek wins over a ranked LSU squad, wasn’t a shocking development. From what we’ve seen on the field from both teams so far, Louisiana Tech is the better baseball team right now. But for most of the weekend, the gap didn’t see as big as it might have on paper.

The Owls’ largest deficit on the weekend came in a 9-3 lost on Saturday which was a 5-3 game after six innings. Two of the final four runs were unearned.  Rice dropped the other two games by two runs apiece, maintaining close contests thanks to three strong outings by their starters — possibly the first time they’ve gotten such a performance in unison in conference play this season.

Being swept isn’t fun, but being thumped is worse. Rice baseball wasn’t thumped this weekend. Now it’s time to get the arms and the bats working together.

THE PLAY BY PLAY

FRIDAY | LA Tech 5 – Rice 3

A first-inning home run put Rice in a 3-0 hole early, setting the stage for what became a pitcher’s duel between the Owls’ Cooper Chandler and Louisiana Tech’s Cade Gibson, who would leave the game after six holding to that very same 3-0 advantage. That’s when Rice responded with a three-spot in the seventh inning sparked by a two-run home run from Jack Riedel and followed by a RBI double from Aaron Smigelski.

The deadlock would last for one more inning before Louisiana Tech used another long ball, this one a two-run variety, to put themselves ahead for good. Rice was shut out in the ninth, falling 5-3 in the opening game.

SATURDAY | LA Tech 9 – Rice 3

Rice baseball got on the board first in the middle game with another home run from Riedel. Austin Bulman tacked on another run via a double to give Rice a 3-0 edge in the fifth, but that’s where the Rice pitching staff would show its first true signs of weakness on the weekend.

Garret Zaskoda entered in relief of Alex DeLeon and surrendered three earned runs in two-thirds of an inning, allowing three of the five batters he faced to get hits. The 3-0 lead became a 4-3 deficit, which would lengthen for the remainder of the game, with Louisiana Tech scoring at least one run in each subsequent frame, winning 9-3.

SUNDAY | LA Tech 3 – Rice 1

Sunday’s are typically high-scoring affairs exhibiting strained bullpens and plenty of pent-up energy. That wasn’t the case at all in this series finale, which featured four total runs, scored in three innings, leaving plenty of white noise in between. Louisiana Tech scored three of Rice starter Thomas Burbank who matched a career-high five innings, set earlier in the week against Houston Baptist.

Unused up to that point, closer Matthew Linskey was handed the ball for the final three innings, tossing a career-high eight strikeouts in another dominant performance. Unfortunately for the Owls, it would be too little, too late.

Podcast: Rice Owls’ Voice JP Heath talks baseball, basketball, broadcasting

Rice would manage just one run on the day, scored on an RBI ground out from Pierce Gallo in the ninth inning. That left the tying run at the plate with just one out, but strikeouts from Smigeliski and Nathan Becker quelled any hopes of a comeback and finalized the series sweep.

ON DECK | Rice baseball at Sam Houston (Tues), vs UTSA (Fri-Sun)

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Rice Baseball pummels HBU in shortened midweek bout

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It only took seven inning for Rice baseball to overwhelm HBU, sweeping the season series with a 7-inning victory over the Huskies on Tuesday night.

Simply put, Tuesday night was one of the most excellent performances Rice baseball has put forth on the diamond in quite some time. From start to finish, the Owls routed their crosstown rivals, sending HBU home after seven innings, a joint decision by the coaches given the decidedly one-sided state of the game.

The score became slanted as it was by an 11-run, 8-hit fifth inning in which Rice came one batter away from going through the order twice. Guy Garibay, Austin Bulman, Aaron Smigelski, Pierce Gallo and Antonio Cruz all reached base twice in the inning as the Owls tallied two triples in the frame.

Last Time Out : Rice baseball wrestling with sweep at hands of FAU

Rice was aided by an HBU error midway through the inning, but they did more than their fair share of damage without any help from the visiting Huskies.

As exciting as the big inning was, it would turn out to be window dressing on the final box score because of the superb pitching performance by Thomas Burbank. The San Jacinto transfer picked up his first win of the season, throwing five innings of one-hit ball, striking out five and silencing the HBU bats.

Burbank would have still picked up the win even if Rice had been shut out from the second inning onward. Smigelski broke the seal on the scoring with a two-run double in the opening inning. From then on it was smooth sailing for the Owls on the mound and at the plate.

“It was nice. It was something positive. We haven’t had something positive in a bit,” Rice baseball head coach Cruz Jr. said after the game. “Now its build on this, come back tomorrow, practice, tighten it up and get ready to go to Louisiana.”

What it means | Midweek magic

Outside of a sloppy 4-error, 9-run loss against Baylor in early March, midweek games have been favorable to the Owls so far this season. Rice is 4-4 in games played on Tuesday or Wednesday, and the majority of those losses have been competitive ballgames, including last week’s slugfest against Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

Meanwhile, Rice baseball is 5-17 in all other contests. That might mean the Owls are better equipped for the churn and chaos that comes with midweek games and stretched bullpen or it may just be a nod to the offense which has teed off against pitching and made opposing hurlers pay for their mistakes in recent weeks. Whatever the case, Rice will take the good fortune whenever it comes around.

ON DECK | at Louisiana Tech

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Rice baseball swept at home, drops battle of Owls to FAU

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In a battle of Owls, Rice Baseball was swept at home by Florida Atlantic over the weekend, outscored by their visitors 24-10 in the three-game series.

THREE FOR THE ROAD | Rice baseball drops series 3-0

A hot start early on in conference play has seemingly cooled off for Rice baseball, who dropped their fifth consecutive contest on Sunday as a three-game series against FAU resulted in a sweep. Going winless at your own ballpark is never fun, and Rice will have plenty to work on as they prepare for a tough road trip to Ruston, LA next weekend. But first, a few takeaways from the weekend.

1. Scoring output stumbles

The Rice bats haven’t been the problem in recent weeks. Even when they weren’t exploding for double-digit outputs, they still seemed to consistently reach six or seven runs, giving their pitching staff support and giving the team a chance in almost every game. Against FAU, Rice scored just 10 runs in three games.

FAU is in the bottom third of the conference in team ERA, and although they’ve pitched fairly well of late, this probably wasn’t the most dominant set of hurlers Rice baseball will see this season. They managed to do a number against the Owls.

Last Time Out: Ninth inning rally comes up short for Rice baseball vs TAMUCC

Perhaps this was just an off weekend, but it was telling that Rice baseball head coach Cruz Jr. opted to empty the benches on Sunday and put Jack Ben-Shoshan and Cullen Hannigan in the starting lineup for the first time in a long while.

He tried to shake things up and provide this lineup a spark. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. As the pitching staff struggles. the bats will continue to be relied upon to win Rice games. When they’re quiet, it’s going to make for long days at the ballpark.

2. Defense is picking up

It wasn’t that long ago where it seemed like Rice was due a three-error or four-error game every weekend. Keeping track of the baseball wasn’t something this team did well, that is, until the switch was flipped in late March and they became a stronger fielding team.

“I think our infield is starting to look really good defensively,” Cruz Jr. said, making note of the return of Hal Hughes to the lineup. Hughes made his season debut on Tuesday against Texas A&M Corpus Christi after missing the first half of the season with an injury.

Rice committed just two errors on the weekend, and although there were a few bad hops that some of the Owls’ defenders would have preferred to make, the focus is definitely better. That’s a plus, and a much-needed sign of growth for the program as a whole.

3. Pitching staff in progress

Had anyone offered Cruz Jr. a pair of two-pitcher games to open this weekend series he would have taken it in a heartbeat, especially against one of the best hitting teams in the conference. FAU leads Conference USA in hits, and although they picked up several against Rice, the Owls top end of the staff was competitive enough to be trusted with deep outings, even in the bullpen.

Weeks ago Cruz Jr. talked about finding a reliable corps to throw in the most high-leverage of situations. Even though the Rice bullpen gave up runs this weekend, it seemed evident some combination of Garret Zaskoda, Roel Garcia, Dalton Wood, David Shaw, Tom Vincent and Cristian Cienfuegos are going to the first guys to get the call just about every weekend from here on out.

More: Rice Baseball Midseason State of the Program

The shortlist has been built. What remains to be seen is which pitchers can make the adjustments and start to limit the damage against some of the deeper lineups in Conference USA. Matthew Linskey has been darn near perfect, but he can’ throw every day, not if he wants to maintain that level of effectiveness. No, it’s going to take another step up by a few more guys. Now it appears the staff knows who they’re looking for.

THE PLAY BY PLAY

FRIDAY | FAU 9 – Rice 4

The series started out on a rocky note for Rice baseball starter Cooper Chandler who gave up four runs in the first two innings including a few very hard-hit balls. To his credit, he dug in and fought his way to the sixth inning. Cruz Jr. noticed his grit, saying Chandler “pitched really good”, casting his major complaints upon the Rice offense, which did little to support their Friday night guy.

Rice scored once in the first inning on a groundout. Guy Garibay pulled Rice within one run on a two-run blast in the fifth inning that made the score 4-3 in favor of FAU. The visitors tacked on five more runs after that, nickling-and-diming Chandler and Zaskoda as the Rice bats watched on, resulting in a 9-4 win for FAU.

SATURDAY | FAU 6 – Ricc 5

Filling for Parker Smith who left his start last weekend early, Alex DeLeon delivered a gritty four-run, five-inning effort in Game 2 with two of those runs unearned. Behind 3-0 in the fourth, Rice slugger Austin Bulman delivered an equalizing three-run shot down the left field line to breathe new life into the Rice dugout.

Both teams traded runs in the fifth inning to set the score at 4-4. Again in the sixth, single tallies from each side made it 5-5. FAU would take the lead for good in the eighth with a leadoff home run against Roel Garia following which Rice would send the minimum to the plate in the final two half innings.

SUNDAY | FAU 7 – Rice 1

Things were shaping up to be a close game on getaway day, until they weren’t. Rice took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI double by Austin Bulman. FAU tied the game in the third, then jumped in front in the fourth. Trailing 3-1, the game still felt in reach until FAU delivered the gut-punch 4-run finisher in the sixth inning.

Podcast: Rice Owls’ Voice JP Heath talks baseball, basketball, broadcasting

Rice reliever David Shaw left with two runners on and one out, setting the table for Tom Vincent, who struggled to get out of the frame. He gave up three hits and allowed a run to score on a hit by pitch as Rice fell behind 7-1. They would not recover, tallying just four hits in the series finale.

ON DECK | Rice baseball vs Houston Baptist (Tues), at Louisiana Tech (Fri-Sun)

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