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Rice Baseball: Pair of grand slams highlight win over SFA

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The offense exploded and the pitching was crisp for Rice baseball as the Owls cruised to a comfortable midweek win over SFA.

Rice baseball wasted no time in their first of two midweek games this week, taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning off a Jack Riedel RBI single. The Owls’ opponent, SFA, would answer with a pair off runs from a pair of extra-base hits in the second inning, but that was their only real offensive contributions of the evening against Rice starter Brandon Deskins

Deskins would go 4.0 innings, allowing just two hits and two runs while striking out seven. His command wasn’t perfect — three walks, one hit by pitch, and one wild pitch — but he didn’t have to be with how the Owls were swinging the bats behind him.

Last Time Out : Takeaways from Rice Baseball 3-0 series loss to Texas Tech

Guy Garibay gave Deskins plenty of breathing room with a Grand Slam in the bottom of the second inning. Garibay had another RBI on a single to right field in the fourth, followed by an Aaron Smigelski homer to give Rice a 9-2 advantage.

From there, Deskins would give way to Mark Perkins, who would do his part in keeping SFA at bay. Meanwhile, the offense added eight more runs in the fifth to break the game wide open, including the Owls’ second Grand Slam of the night, this time courtesy of Nathan Becker. By the time the dust settled, Rice had a runaway, 19-3 victory.

What it means | Getting right

Even though Rice baseball lost all three games against Texas Tech this past weekend, head coach Jose Cruz Jr. could sense a change in his ball club. “The last couple days have been different,” he said, referring to the two final games against the Red Raiders, both of which were well within reach following a one-sided Fright night affair.

“Everything is starting to fall into place at the right time,” Cruz Jr. continued. “Especially since conference is about start.”

Rice wouldn’t even have to wait for conference play, thumping SFA in their most decisive victory of the season. The offense was great. The pitching was great. Even the defense, which had just turned in its first error-free game of the season on Sunday, was sturdy. Everything was in sync.

One win won’t guarantee the Owls anything. There was no magic button pressed or formula concocted. But they do look different. They feel different. Perhaps something has clicked and they’ve found that missing component that will enable them to play better baseball. That makes the next few days all the more interesting with Sam Houston and UAB up next.

ON DECK | Sam Houston, UAB

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Rice baseball shows fight despite sweep by Texas Tech

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Rice Baseball dropped the series, but put together two quality games against Texas Tech, boosting morale as conference play nears.

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

There were parts of the weekend when Rice baseball looked every bit a worthy adversary for No. 15 Texas Tech. The Owls pitching dueled it out with the Red Raider arms and the bats came through in a few key moments to keep things interesting. Fielding woes were the most debilitating part of the series for Rice, but that alone wasn’t the difference between these two Lone Star programs.

“The last couple days have been different,” head coach Jose Cruz Jr. set in retrospect. Rice pushed Texas Tech to the wire in both games, suffering too many errors on Saturday and watching a ball ricochet awkwardly off third base on Sunday in a pivotal moment.

Last Time Out: Rice baseball drops first game of Silver Glove Series to UH

Rice baseball won’t have much time to regroup. They have two midweek games in the coming days before opening up conference play next weekend. But before we get there, more on what we learned from this series and what’s next for Rice baseball.

1. Baseball 101: Don’t drop it

Errors have been an unbelievably extensive issue for Rice baseball through their first few weeks of the season. Following a five-error outing on Friday night, the Owls had committed four or more errors in three of their last seven games.

With the three-game series against Texas Tech now in the books, they’ve still yet to play a full nine innings without committing an error this season. For context, Rice had 22 error-free games last season, keeping a zero on that part of the box score in 42 percent of their games.

Jack Riedel’s diving grab in shallow right-center field to open the third game was proof the Owls do have the capacity to play great defense in spurts. Right now they’d settle for just taking care of the routine plays. If they can do that, they’ll be in line to win more than their Sunday games.

2. Pitching performs

Coming into this weekend, Texas Tech had scored 12 first-inning runs this season. They scored one (unearned) run in their three first-inning at-bats against Rice. After struggling to get their starting rotation going early on this season, the Owls’ front-line arms were outstanding over the three-game slate.

And it wasn’t just the starters, the Rice bullpen put together some incredible outings as well. David Shaw went two scoreless on Saturday. Tom Vincent and Matthew Linskey were both extremely effective on Sunday. Even though they gave up some runs, Thomas Burbank and Garret Zaskoda both made big pitches on Friday night.

Texas Tech averaged 9.2 runs per game prior to their three-game series with Rice baseball. They averaged 6.7 runs against the Owls, but only 4.6 earned runs. Holding this offense that far below their average should have been enough to win some games. It’ll get there if all phases start firing at the same time.

3. Hitting … TBD

Rice baseball is roughly a month into its season and there are still plenty of unknowns regarding who is going to be hitting (or attempting to hit) the baseball for the Owls. Aaron Smigeliski, Guy Garibay, Austin Bulman and Connor Walsh have essentially inked their names into the lineup card, but most everyone else seems to remain on a game-to-game basis.

Fortunately for the Owls, those players that have been cycling through the lineup have started to find their stroke. “It was contributions from a lot of people in different parts of lineup,” Cruz Jr. said. “Which is what it’s going to take for us to be successful.”

It took the bats a while to get going, but they did come through with some big hits with runners in scoring position this weekend. They’ll need some more of that if they’re going to turn close losses into wins against a quality opponent like Texas Tech, but the bones are there if Rice can get just a little bit more from the back end of the lineup, too.

THE PLAY BY PLAY

FRIDAY | Texas Tech 10 – Rice 1

Whether it was chilly weather or superb pitching, both teams came out of the gate slowly on the opening night of the series. As the game progressed into the fifth inning with Rice trailing 2-1, the Owls looked every bit the part of a quality opponent for the Red Raiders. Then the bottom fell out on the fielding side and the bats simply weren’t potent enough to overcome the shift.

The Rice defense committed five errors, the first of which set up the big four-run fifth inning that redefined the game. Rice pitchers struck out 10 but walked eight. Further amplifying the defensive woes. Texas Tech out-hit Rice 9-8 and would tack on additional runs following their 6-1 fifth-inning lead as the Owls went quietly down the stretch.

SATURDAY | Texas Tech 3 – Rice 2

Rice spotted Texas Tech an unearned run in the first inning on Saturday. Then they handed them another in the fourth inning. In fact, the Red Raiders didn’t score an earned run until an RBI double in the ninth inning. The Rice pitching was simply better.

In what was one of his best outings of his career at Reckling Park, Roel Garcia struck out nine batters in four innings with one walk and one extra-base hit allowed. David Shaw called with two scoreless innings of no-hit ball with Alex DeLeon working three strong frames, despite allowing the go-ahead hit. The Rice offense picked up some clutch hits two even the score at 2-2 in the eighth, but there wasn’t enough juice to hold on.

SUNDAY | Texas Tech 7 – Rice 1

Both teams picked up right where they left off when they arrived at the ballpark for the series finale. Rice struck first, taking their first lead of the weekend on a first-inning sacrifice fly from Aaron Smigelski. Texas Tech would tie it in the third before Rice came through with two RBI singles in the fourth to take a 4-1 advantage.

It would be Texas Tech’s turn after that. The Red Raiders broke through against Reed Gallant and Christian Cienfuegos in the middle innings, taking a 6-4 lead through six innings. Texas Tech would retire 15 straight Rice batters and tack on one more run, winning 7-4.

ON DECK | Rice baseball vs SFA (Tues), Sam Houston (Wed), UAB (Fri-Sun)

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Rice Baseball drops first Silver Glove matchup vs Houston

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Shaky defense soured a productive evening for the Rice baseball offense as the Owls fell to Houston in Game 1 of the Silver Glove Series.

The recent string of strange, painful games accumulated by Rice baseball this season continued on Tuesday night. Amidst a backdrop of errors and missed opportunities, Parker Smith delivered a strong performance, eventually be saddled with five runs, although only three were earned.

The drama began on what should have been a routine fly-ball hit to left fielder Jack Ben-Shoshan in the first inning. Instead of out number two, the ball bounced off his glove and put two runners in scoring position. Both would come in to score, spotting the visiting Cougars to a 2-0 lead.

Last Time Out : Takeaways from Rice Baseball 3-1 series loss to Harvard

Rice would leave the bases loaded in the second before loading them once more in the third inning, despite not tallying any hits. Aaron Smigelski would take care of that evasive base knock, delivering a two-run double to spot Rice to a 3-2 lead. That advantage would last mere minutes before Houston found the equalizer in the fourth when a would-be base stealer would score from second on a pair of errors.

Soon after, Rice found themselves trailing 5-3 and began to chip away. Rice scored would engineer runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, tying things up with Houston 6-6 after the Owls allowed another unearned run following another outfield mishap.

On the mound, Garrett Zaskoda was extremely effective after taking the reigns from Cooper Chandler in his first relief appearance of the season. Zaskoda tied a career-high with four strikeouts, giving the team a fighting chance in the middle innings which they’d hold until an RBI double scored the winning runs against Zaskoda’s replacement, Brandon Deskins, in the eighth.

What they’re saying | Fix the fielding

Head coach Jose Cruz Jr. was quick to praise the strong outings on the mound, giving nods to several individuals including Chandler, who essentially threw his midweek bullpen session in the game. The critical comments came when addressing the fielding woes. “I don’t know how you can possibly have five errors and win a game,” he said. “That’s just something that we’re going to have to fix. The amount of errors we’ve had in so many games is just unacceptable.”

Cruz Jr. went as far as to say he’d consider moving players to the bench if they couldn’t hold on to the baseball. At this point, everything is on the table as he and the rest of the coaching staff work to assemble the best starting lineup to win games.

“We had three errors in the outfield today and that’s crazy town. I mean, that doesn’t happen,” Cruz Jr. said. Indeed, it hasn’t happened for Rice baseball since an eight error game against Arizona in 2019, spread across a host of different position players.

What it means | Offense waking up?

Seven runs against anyone is a particularly important milestone for a team that’s struggled at the plate early this season. Tuesday was proof the Owls can get the bats going. Now they just need to do it consistently.

They might start working on a bust of Aaron Smigeliski to keep in the Rice baseball dugout. After pinch hits in his first two appearances of the season, Smigelski earned his spot in the regular lineup where he stayed until being hit by a pitch in the Sunday finale against Lamar. That injury kept him out of the lineup against Baylor and through the weekend series against Harvard.

He made his return to the order on Tuesday, walking in his first plate appearance to earn an eight-game on-base streak. He one-upped that accolade in his second plate appearance, blasting a double to the alley in right-center, turning a 2-1 Rice deficit into a 3-2 Rice lead. It was the Owls’ only hit of the first three innings, but it was the biggest. He also added a productive out to advance a runner in the seventh.

At a time when the bats around him were struggling, Smigelski made every trip to the plate count, going 2-for-4 with 2 RBI. In all seriousness, it’ll take more than a good couple of weeks to earn some tangible hardware. But in a season filled with lows for Rice baseball, Smigelski has been a bright light.

Jack Riedel also earned a mention. Despite not starting the game and coming in as a defensive replacement in the fourth inning he finished a triple short of the cycle, mashing his first career home run along the way.

ON DECK | Texas Tech

The extended Rice baseball homestand marches on this coming weekend with a three-game set against Texas Tech. First pitch for Friday is set for 6:30 p.m. The series will be the Owls’ final non-conference weekend slate before opening up conference play the following weekend against UAB.

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Rice Baseball: Struggles continue as Owls drop series to Harvard, 3-1

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Rice Baseball averted the sweep, but still turned in a rather poor outing against Harvard in the Owls’ second home series loss of the season.

THREE FOR THE ROAD | Rice baseball drops series 3-1

Perhaps someone just needs to whisper “It’s Sunday” into the Rice baseball dugout every day. Two of the Owls’ three wins this year have come in the final game of their weekend series with the other coming in a midweek tilt at Houston Baptist. Rice picked up its third win of the year this weekend, but it came with a tangible cost — three more painful losses. What did we learn from the 1-3 weekend and what’s next for Rice baseball?

1. Mayday, offense

It wasn’t until the shadows started to creep across the diamond at Reckling Park late Saturday afternoon that the Rice offense even began to consider showing up for the week. Rice was blanked 9-0 by Baylor on Wednesday. On Friday night, Harvard skunked the Owls 3-0. Then Rice failed to scratch across even a singular run through five innings on the first half of Saturday’s doubleheader.

Even when accounting for the nine-run outburst on Sunday afternoon, Rice accumulated 12 runs in fives games this week dating back to the Baylor disaster. That’s an average of 2.4 runs per game. While there are days when a team can get away with that low of a run total, more often than not, you’re going to need more oomph to win college baseball game these days, you just are.

Last Time Out: Baylor blanks Owls in midweek tilt

Head coach Jose Cruz Jr. did what he could on Sunday to spark the sluggish unit. He flipped up the batting order and shuffled names around. That did help, but the bulk of the production still came from the core of Guy Garibay, Austin Bulman, Connor Walsh and Nathan Becker, four guys who were likely to be in the lineup in some capacity anyway.

Whether it’s improved approaches, better plate discipline or all of the above, the task in the batter’s box has reached critical levels of importance.

2. Starting pitching might be coming around

For the first weekend this year, Rice baseball had more decent outings from the bulk of their starting rotation. Cooper Chandler went 5.0 innings and allowed two earned runs with six strikeouts, by far his best outing of the season. On Saturday, Roel Garcia went four scoreless frames. More length would have been a bonus for both of them, but leaving the game midway through without putting the team in a large hole is a win for now.

Thomas Burbank was really the only starter who had a “bad” outing. His 3.0 inning, three-run performance will be colored by the double he surrendered on his final pitch which allowed two to score and staked Harvard to an early 3-0 lead. At that point in the series, Rice simply had to try someone else to attempt to salvage a split.

Lastly, Alex DeLeon earned the win on Sunday with four innings of two-run ball. He only struck out one batter but competed well, giving up one home run in an otherwise quality outing. That quartet was far from perfect, but none of them singlehandedly lost Rice games. That hasn’t been the case in previous weekends to date.

3. It’s going to be a long season

Rice baseball is 3-9 through their first 12 games. It’s true, starting off with No. 1 ranked Texas in Austin was a brutal welcoming to a new era at South Main, but the Owls have played the next nine games at Reckling Park. And if the likes of Lamar and Harvard can reprise the fabled murder’s row of the Yankee greats, how will this team respond to above-average teams. Like, Baylor, perhaps?

This isn’t a call for anyone to throw in the towels, heaven’s no. But it is a sobering reminder that this young team is going to need to develop from the ground up. There’s a ton of talent standing on the grass at Reckling right now. Every piece just isn’t fully in sync with each other.

To his credit, Cruz Jr. didn’t place the bar as high as those outside the program might have initially demanded it. “I’m not going to promise the moon right now,” he said during the lead up to the season. “I will say we will be better than we were the last couple years.”

Rice was 2-14 in 2020 and 23-29-1 last season. This iteration of Rice baseball is already above the 2020 club. They’ve got a ways to go until they’re anywhere in the ballpark of .500. That’s probably okay, but it’s going to have to take some getting used to as they grow and develop in real time.

THE PLAY BY PLAY

FRIDAY | Harvard 3 – Rice 0

Harvard struck first with a leadoff double to set the table in the second inning. They followed it up with a manufactured run via a couple of singles in these second. Despite cobbling together just one hit through three innings, Rice still had an opportunity to answer with the bases loaded in the bottom of the third with no outs. Austin Bulman struck out and Guy Garibay lined out to right field to end the threat.

Neither team would score for the next six innings. Harvard pushed across an insurance run in the ninth courtesy of a Rice error. The Owls went quietly. Rice had three times as many strikeouts (15) as hits (5) for the day. Had it not been for quality outings on the mound from Chandler, Garret Zaskoda, David Shaw and DeLeon, there wouldn’t have been anything positive to take away from this game.

SATURDAY (AM) | Harvard 2 – Rice 1

The offense was equally disappointing in the first end of Saturday’s double header. The Owls sent the minimum to the plate five times in the seven-inning game and scored just one run. That came in the bottom half of the sixth inning which had just seen the Rice defense commit two errors, contributing to Harvard’s only two runs of the game.

Once more, the Rice pitching staff was fine. Garcia had a strong performance. Even though Brandon Deskins was charged with the games’ only two runs, neither was earned and he pitched relatively well. The defense just did not help him out.

SATURDAY (PM) | Harvard 6 – Rice 3

The back end of the doubleheader featured some of the Owls’ more disappointing outings on the mound from the weekend. Burbank was hit hard, giving up three extra-base hits in three innings. Mark Perkins recorded just as many outs as he handed out walks (two apiece) and Dalton Wood’s struggles with the strikeout continued. His three runs allowed in the fifth inning sunk any chance Rice had of mounting a comeback.

Rice got two runs back in the fifth via a fielder’s choice followed by a well-placed double by Bulman. A sac fly from Garibay would make it 6-3 in the seventh, but the hole was just too big to overcome.

SUNDAY | Rice 9 – Harvard 6

Three games’ worth (or more) of frustration boiled over on Sunday as Rice delivered a three-spot in the first inning, two more runs in the second and another in the third. Harvard would score twice against DeLeon, but the Rice bats did not slow down. Rice scored at least one run in five of the first six innings, staking the bullpen to a 9-2 lead and asking them for nine outs.

For the most part, Tom Vincent and Reed Gallant threw strikes. Each walked just one batter in more than one inning of work (2.0 for Vincent, 1.1 for Gallant). While each was credited with two runs, the cushion they were pitching with was sufficient to net Rice the win.

ON DECK | Rice baseball vs Houston (Tues)

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Sloppy performance doors Rice Baseball against Baylor in midweek tilt

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Rice baseball couldn’t hold on to the ball in a sloppy midweek loss to Baylor, committing four errors for the first time since the 2020 season.

The starting rotation had been an adventure for Rice baseball in the early outings of the 2022 season. Parker Smith, the Owls’ midweek starter, had delivered the unquestionably best appearance to date when he pitched six scoreless innings in a win against Houston Baptist last Tuesday. He got off to a solid start against Baylor this week, but left the game in the fifth with his team trailing 5-0.

Although he’ll be credited with the loss in the box score, he’s only going to be charged with one earned run. That’s because Rice committed four errors in the contest, fumbling away any chance of toppling an in-state on a beautiful evening at Reckling Park. A leaping grab by Justin Dunlap might have been the only bright spot.

The first blow came in the second inning. Following a strikeout and a single, the third batter ripped a ball down the right field line to Guy Garibay. It was fielded cleanly and relayed into the infield where it was mishandled and allowed to roll all the way to the left field wall. One run scored. Smith worked out of the rest of the frame without further damage.

Last Time Out : Takeaways from Rice Baseball 2-1 series loss to Lamar

Both teams swapped zeroes in the third and fourth innings before disaster struck in the fifth. What should have been a one-out lineout to Justin Dunlap bounced off his glove to the fence, putting runners on second and third. What should have been a routine groundout on the following play allowed both runs to score when the ball ricocheted off the glove of Austin Bulman into the outfield.

The next Baylor batter deposited the ball over the left field fence. 5-0. And every single run could be traced back to a booted ball or an off-target throw. Baylor would tack on three more run, two via wild pitches, before the final out. Rice mistakes were the overarching theme of the evening.

What it means

The four errors are the most committed by any Rice baseball team in a single game since March 3, 2020 against Louisiana. They’d only had a pair of three-error games since the 2020 season began, one of which came last week against Houston Baptist. In fact, Rice committed at least one error in every game this season. They’ve played eight.

There were always going to be bumps and bruises as the Owls learned to fly under a new head coach. But several of the players that have committed these infractions are seasoned baseball players who haven’t forgotten how to play. Whatever the reason, the problem has to be addressed. Rice is beating themselves just as much as other teams are winning through pure ability and talent.

ON DECK | Lamar

Rice baseball is in the midst of a 17-game homestand which continues on Friday when Harvard comes to town. The Owls will play a four-game set with the Crimson, including a Saturday doubleheader.

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