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Rice Baseball 2024 Season Review: Lineup

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The offense was underwhelming for Rice baseball in 2024, posting the second-lowest OPS in the AAC while leading the league in strikeouts.

Rice baseball took a while to figure out the bats in 2024, but even when the Owls did get things going at the plate, the lineup remained fairly hot and cold. Fortunately for the Owls, having the league’s top home run hitter and some veteran pieces helped keep them competitive at the plate through the hard times. Through it all, there were individual highlights — described in more detail below — but for the most part, it was another challenging year with the sticks.

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Rice Baseball 2024 Season Review: Bullpen

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The bullpen made improvements as the 2024 Rice baseball season progressed, turning into a dependable unit by season’s end.

It was a rocky start for the Rice baseball bullpen. It took a few weeks for the staff to figure out who they could trust in the most high-leverage moments and for the players put into those positions to feel comfortable in their own shoes. Once everything came together, though, this pitching staff really excelled, providing plenty of backing for the starting pitching and give the Owls a shot to win some ballgames. For the purposes of this discussion, we focused on players who through at least 20 innings this season.

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Rice Baseball 2024 Season Review: Starting Pitching

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The Rice baseball starting rotation was imperfect, but productive in 2024, paving the way for much of the team’s successes.

For the first time under head coach Jose Cruz Jr, the Rice baseball starting rotation was truly set it and forget it. The Owls kept the same triumvirate of arms almost every weekend of the regular season and never had to truly consider demoting any of the three because of poor performance. The rotation was deployed without any hiccups.

For the purposes of this discussion, the three pitchers who were mainstays in the weekend rotation were included as the Owls tended to rotate through midweek guys as injuries cropped up and players produced. Here’s a rundown of how the starters faired this season.

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** Photo credit: Maria Lysakar **
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Grab Bag: What’s going on around Rice Athletics? May 2024 Q&A

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Rather than drill down on one topic, subscribers had a variety of questions this month touching all areas of Rice Athletics. We hit on them all.

A lot is going on around Rice Athletics right as the academic year winds down. This mailbag touches on a host of topics ranging from the state of college sports, possible Rice Athletics sports additions, existing sports and more.

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Q: What’s happening with upgrading Rice Stadium?

A: Finding a solution for the current stadium situation was one of the first things athletic director Tommy McClelland mentioned when he was hired and while proposed solutions haven’t been communicated yet… hang tight. The wheels are turning and progress is being made on that front. When the time comes to share those next steps, I think most Rice fans will be excited about the direction the administration wants to head with the stadium.

Q: Any chance for men’s soccer?

A: In short, probably not. Rice had now added two women’s programs, diving and golf, but both of those were logistical slam dunks. Now that the Owls are adding the sport, every D1 program in the state has women’s golf and bolstering the swimming program with diving was an obvious next step. When it comes to a brand new program with a larger scholarship base, I’d look towards the possibility of another women’s program, but a decision like that probably isn’t imminent.

Q: What’s going on with women’s soccer? The last two years have been disappointing. Is Brian Lee the right guy for the job?

A: Lee made noise when he arrived on campus and took Rice soccer to the Sweet 16, a first in program history. They were undefeated in conference play in 2022 before the aforementioned rough 2023 campaign in which they went 3-13-2. McClelland has demonstrated he’s not averse to making a change if needed, but I’d find it hard to believe there was imminent pressure on Lee or the program given what they’ve accomplished so far.

As far as recent news, Rice has the No. 32 recruiting class in the country coming to campus. Those reinforcements should be a huge boost to the program.

Q: Where does Rice fit in the future of college sports?

A: Rice obviously doesn’t have the resources of some of the biggest national brands that are making headlines. And while that’s true, it’s equally apparent Rice is committing itself to being competitive in collegiate sports for the long haul. What that will look like in two years, five years, ten years? Nobody can be certain.

The most recent NCAA House case settlement has cast further uncertainty around what that future world will include, but it won’t spell the end of college sports, far from it. Things are going to look different. Athletes are going to get compensated in ways that were unfathomable even a few years ago. But college sports aren’t going anywhere and Rice will continue to participate.

Consider this an educated guess. Rice Athletics will strive to maintain its spot in the highest level of competition available to them and will spend commensurate amounts alongside its peers to compete for championships. I don’t envision a scenario where the Owls voluntarily “give up” on that aspiration because conditions become too challenging or vary too far from the traditional model of collegiate athletics that existed in the pre-NIL world.

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Rice Baseball ends regular season with sweep by ECU

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Rice Baseball ended its regular season with a sweep at the hands of East Carolina and now must await its postseason fate as other teams finish play.

FRIDAY | ECU 8 – Rice 2

Parker Smith labored through eight innings on Friday night, more or less keeping the ECU offense at bay in six of those frames. The Pirates made him pay in those two decisive innings, though, putting up a four-spot in the fourth and a three-spot in the eighth.

Last Time Out: Rice Baseball run-rules Texas Southern in midweek finale

Unfortunately for Smith, he didn’t get much help from the Rice bats. Rice scored once on a sac fly in the second and once again on a fielder’s choice in the seventh. Runs were hard to come by on a night when the offense totaled just four hits and did not draw any walks.

SATURDAY (AM) | ECU 15 – Rice 5 (8 innings)

A short day from JD McCracken led to a disastrous beginning of a Saturday doubleheader for Rice baseball. McCracken was pulled after a four-walk first inning in favor of Garrett Stratton, who faired even worse in the second inning, surrendering seven runs before being lifted himself for Mark Perkins. Despite chipping into the lead with a pair of runs of their own in the top half of the second, Rice entered the third inning trailing 11-2.

Another slow start for the bats was not enough to overcome the massive early deficit. Rice tallied five hits and five runs, three of which came on solo home runs by Kyte McDonald, Pierce Gallo and Trey Duffield. None of them were enough to prevent ECU from winning the game via a run-rule decision in the eighth.

SATURDAY (PM) | ECU 6 – Rice 4

East Carolina got out in front in the first inning with a two-run home run, putting the Owls behind the eight ball once again. This time, though, the bats woke up. Six consecutive hits and four runs later, Rice was in front. Max Johnson delivered the first RBI whack with a two-run double. Kyte McDonald added another RBI hit and then Treyton Rank drove in run number four.

More: Jose Cruz Jr. and the trajectory of Rice Baseball

ECU got one run back in the second, then Rice called on Davion Hickson to go the rest of the way. He held the Pirates to six hits in 4.1 innings of work, but five of those hits came consecutively in the sixth inning, allowing ECU to retake the lead, 6-4. They would hold on to win by that score.

THREE FOR THE ROAD

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1. Starting pitching struggles

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