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Rice Baseball compiles complete performances in WKU series win

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Rice Baseball took a much-needed weekend series against Western Kentucky, staying alive in the race for the Conference USA Tournament.

THREE FOR THE ROAD | Rice baseball wins the series 2-1

Rice baseball dropped the opening game before storming back to take the series thanks to a pair of one-sided affairs that ended in landslide victories on Saturday and Sunday. The pitching was good, the defense was stellar and the bats were explosive.

The series win is the Owls’ first since taking two of three from Marshall in later March. Rice is now 13-30 overall and 6-15 in conference play. Here are a few takeaways from the weekend.

1. Bring out the bats

Rice baseball scored five runs against Southern Miss last weekend across three games. They followed that up with a three-run outing on Friday night. Then the bats woke up. And when they did, they shook Reckling Park for the remainder of the weekend. Rice scored 24 runs over the final 20 innings of the weekend.

While it was the usual suspects who led the charge, Rice got contributions up and down the lineup. That’s what enabled the Owls to cobble together so many crooked numbers. Rather than wait for Austin Bulman, Guy Garibay or Aaron Smigelski to deliver the big hit, the entire lineup contributed in key moments.

Last Time Out: Rice baseball swept by No. 6 Southern Miss on the road

Pierce Gallo went 4-for-5 on Saturday with four RBI while hitting from the sixth spot. Hal Hughes was a perfect 2-for-2 on Sunday, scoring twice and doubling along the way. Catchers Justin Long and Manny Garza each had RBI hits during the weekend. Great players can drive in runs here and there, but it truly takes a village to score like the Owls did this weekend.

2. Sneaky strong starting pitching

Despite not having Cooper Chandler on Friday night, Rice starting pitching produced one of their most competitive weekends of the season. Thomas Burbank had the shortest outing, only going 2.2 innings, but things would only get better from there.

On Saturday, David Shaw through five innings, allowing one earned run on just three hits. It was Alex DeLeon’s turn to dazzle on Sunday, hurling five innings of one-run ball himself. Both of those outings allowed the offense time to work on the Western Kentucky staff with tremendous results.

DeLeon tipped his cap to the herculean defensive efforts of his outfielders behind him like Connor Walsh. “It makes you kind of calm down out there, kinda relax and get back into a groove,” he said.

Few teams are able to turn in three quality starting outings from their weekend rotation on a consistent basis. That said, it’s hard to be upset with what the Rice staff was able to accomplish this weekend.

3. Building momentum?

Head coach Jose Cruz Jr. acknowledge it would take some time to get the program to where he wanted it to be shortly after taking the job last year. The year has been filled with road bumps, but this weekend served as a positive note as the calendar turns to May. It’s too late to rewrite box scores from March and April — that damage has been done — but Rice still controls what happens from this point onward.

The teams that are remembered are the ones that win in May. To regurgitate an age-old sports adage, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. Because they were able to take a series this weekend they’ll now have the opportunity to win back-to-back series for the first time this year. That’s how all good runs start, by winning the next game.

“We’re basically going to have to win every series to even have a chance,” Cruz Jr. said, aware of how large the task at hand is for his team. “We’re just going to have to show up and play the best ball we’ve played. Right now we’re trending in that direction.”

THE PLAY BY PLAY

FRIDAY | WKU 5 – Rice 3

Western Kentucky jumped out in front early on Friday night, scoring twice in the second inning off Rice starter Thomas Burbank, who went 2.2 innings before ceding to Brandon Deskins, who escaped a jam and kept WKU off the board for the remainder of his outing.

Rice would tally 11 hits on the afternoon but was unable to turn them into runs until the seventh inning. At that point, Western Kentucky had taken a 4-0 lead and Rice was forced to play catch up. Home runs by Austin Bulman and Manny Garza in the late innings helped narrow the gap, but Rice would fall 5-3.

SATURDAY | Rice 13 – WKU 8

Rice fell behind in the second game of the series, but they wouldn’t spend long trailing. The Owls took the lead with a two-run second inning. Then Rice exploded for 10 runs in the second inning, the most runs Rice has scored in a single inning in conference play since scoring 10 at Charlotte in 2019. Aaron Smigelski and Pierce Gallo each had multiple RBI hits in the frame, putting Rice in front 12-1.

Western Kentucky cobbled together seven additional runs over the course of the next seven innings, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Owls’ sizable early lead. Cristian Cienfuegos would come on to pitch the final two innings to preserve the win.

SUNDAY | Rice 8 – WKU 2

After swapping runs in the first inning, Rice took their first lead of the rubber game on a sacrifice fly from Guy Garibay in the third inning. Garibay would extend the lead himself in his next plate appearance, diving to right field to score one just before Austin Bulman delivered a two-run blast.

Leading 5-2 at that point, the Rice offense struck for three more in the sixth courtesy of doubles from Jack Reidel and Hal Hughes plus a wild pitch. Alex DeLeon was terrific on the mound, holding WKU to two runs in five innings. Matthew Linskey came on to close things out in the eighth, endured a 49-minute lightning delay, then finished out the ninth to lock down the win.

ON DECK | at Charlotte (Fri-Sun)

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Rice Baseball bats quiet in sweep by No. 6 Southern Miss

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Rice Baseball was swept by No. 6 Southern Miss despite numerous chances to make the series much closer early in the weekend.

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

From a pitcher’s duel to a blowout-shortened game, Rice baseball saw everything in their weekend sweep by Southern Miss — everything except for runs. The Owls have lost four consecutive conference series and enter the last few weeks of the regular season with an 11-29 overall record, 4-14 in conference play. Here are a few takeaways from the weekend.

1. Situational hitting

Finding base runners was challenging this weekend, but for the most part, Rice had opportunities to drive in runs but did not capitalize. Rice was 1-for-2 with runners in scoring position in Friday night’s 1-0 pitcher’s duel, then 2-for-12 on Saturday and 1-for-6 on Sunday.

The Owls had one two-out RBI. Southern Miss had eight. There wasn’t any way to squint at the boxscore and walk away feeling comfortable with what the lineup was able to do in situations where one hit had the potential to tangibly impact the bottom line.

Last Time Out: Rice baseball sweeps season series over SHSU with midweek win

For the weekend, Rice hit .167 when the bases were empty. The Owls hit .128 with runners on in any capacity, tallying five total hits when they had anyone on base in the three game series. The Southern Miss pitching was tremendous, but Rice wasn’t exactly putting their best foot forward at the plate either.

2. Strikeouts

Rice baseball hitters struck out 42 times in 25 innings, a rate of roughly 1.7 batters per inning. When more than half of your at bats don’t get the ball in play at all, you have a problem. There were several occasions where those punchouts killed golden run scoring opportunities.

Friday, Top 7. With Rice trailing 1-0 and Aaron Smigelski at second base, Pierce Gallo struck out. The runner would never advance. Rice would lose 1-0.

Saturday, Top 3. Rice had the bases loaded with no outs and had already forced Southern Miss to go to the bullpen. After an infield fly from Galo, Jack Ben-Shoshan struck out looking, handing a two-out situation to Justin Long who grounded out. Rice wouldn’t score again for the rest of the game.

It’s not an individual problem, and those two examples aren’t meant to isolate the players themselves, moreso they point to a trend that has proven extremely detrimental to this team over the past several weeks.

3. Silver linings

  • Aaron Smigelski had a sold weekend at the plate, accounting for three of the Owls’ 13 hits.
  • Manny Garza went 2-for-3 on Sunday, his second multi-hit game of the year. He’s batting .438 on the season after recently returning to the lineup after injuries kept him on the shelf for several weeks.
  • The defense turned three double-plays on Saturday, a season high. Fielding was altogether better on the whole. Rice committed four errors in three games, but had just one error in the first two games combined.
  • Cooper Chandler was fantastic on Friday night, throwing a season-long seven innings.

THE PLAY BY PLAY

FRIDAY | Southern Miss 1 – Rice 0

The first seven Rice batters struck out and the offense didn’t collect their first hit until the fourth inning. On most days, particularly away from the confines of Reckling Park, that would have left the Owls in a sizable hole. That wasn’t the case this time around, thanks to the near-flawless outing of Cooper Chandler.

Chandler allowed a leadoff double in the sixth which would come around to score on a sacrifice fly, but otherwise he was superb, allowing five hits in 7.0 innings with four strikeouts and no walks. Matthew Linskey followed with a spotless eighth, but the bats never got going. Rice managed three total hits, two of which came in the fourth inning when Nathan Becker was thrown out at the plate.

SATURDAY | Southern Miss 6 – Rice 3

Rice got another strong outing on the mound on Saturday, this time from Alex DeLeon who cruised through four innings before running into trouble in the fifth. Rice led 3-1 at the time, cobbling together a few runs in the second and third innings. It wouldn’t be enough. When DeLeon was ambushed, the situation devolved quickly.

Southern Miss led off that inning with back-to-back doubles followed by a home run. David Shaw would finish the free, but the damage had been done. Trailing 6-3, the Rice offense wouldn’t score again, despite Shaw finishing out the game with an impressive 3.2 innings of one-run ball.

SUNDAY | Southern Miss 12 – Rice 2 (7 innings)

That one crooked inning would do Rice in again on Sunday, but early on everything seemed to be in line with the beginnings of the first two contests of the weekend. Southern Miss scratched across singular runs in the second and third off starter Thomas Burbank. Rice tied the game up in the second on a two-run home run from Nathan Becker.

Even when Southern Miss answer in the fifth with three runs against Roel Garcia, it didn’t feel like the game was out of reach. But that would prove to only be the tip of the iceberg. Southern Miss erupted for seven runs in the seventh inning, ending with a grand slam to put the home team ahead 12-2. The game was called at that point, leaving Rice to head back home on a low note after two much more competitive games.

ON DECK | vs Western Kentucky (Fri-Sun)

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Rice baseball: Sunday fireworks avert weekend sweep vs UTSA

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Rice Baseball salvaged a Sunday win against UTSA, snapping a nine-game C-USA losing streak as the back end of the season approaches.

THREE FOR THE ROAD | Rice baseball drops series 2-1

Rice baseball dropped a conference series for the third consecutive weekend, this time falling to UTSA 2–1 at Reckling Park. The Owls pitching staff was worn down throughout the weekend, but the Rice bats were able to answer with some power of their own in a runaway Sunday win. Here are a few takeaways from the weekend.

1. Ouch

Rice baseball gave up 36 runs in its three-game series with Texas earlier this season. At the time, that was largely excused as early-season jitters on an opening weekend against a college baseball superpower.

From there, the run totals against the Owls started to dissipate, albeit slowly. Lamar scored 26 runs in three games. Tech scored 20. UAB had 26 runs and FAU pushed across 22. Then UTSA came into Reckling and put up 31 runs, but somehow only managed to win two of the three contests.

Last Time Out: Rice baseball sweeps season series over SHSU with midweek win

UTSA is second in the conference in batting average, third in on-base percentage and fourth in slugging percentage. The Roadrunner bats have been just as lethal elsewhere. But it still stings a bit to give up an average north of 10 runs per game over the course of a weekend, regardless of how good the opponent is thought to be at the time.

2. All together now

Despite the first two one-sided results in favor of the visitors, Rice and UTSA each tallied 34 hits on the weekend with UTSA committing seven fielding errors to the Owls’ six. Part of the reason Rice came up short in the run column was the lack of synergy the lineup produced in the first two games, especially at the top where the bulk of the Owls’ offensive production has been produced so far this season.

On Friday, Jack Riedel and Aaron Smigelski went hitless while Nathan Becker and Austin Bulman managed a single apiece.

On Saturday it was Guy Garibay’s turn to go 0-for-5 from the field. Smigelski, directly behind him in the batting order, went 0-for-4.

It wasn’t until the Sunday finale the Rice bats started firing in unison. Garibay, Bulman, Smigelski and Becker each reached base at least four times. Pierce Gallo followed behind them with a four-hit, four-RBI day.

It’s unrealistic to expect that kind of production from an entire middle of the lineup day in and day out, but even an extra hit here and there would have helped the Owls extend innings and scratch across a few more runs. On Saturday UTSA outhit Rice 14-10 but won by 11 runs. That’s just too big of a gap. The offense left too many runs on the table.

3. Sundays are for closers

Ironically, Rice closer Matthew Linskey has his worst outing of the season, surrendering four runs in his lone inning of work. But it wouldn’t matter in the end, because the Rice lineup had given him a more the sufficient cushion with a crucial assist from a pair of Rice pitchers.

Thomas Burbank and Brandon Deskins held a lineup that had scored 24 runs in the first 18 innings of the series to two runs across seven frames. Honestly, it was stunning, in the most positive of ways. Rice doesn’t win the game without both men hurling tremendous games, allowing the Owls to race out to such a big lead.

On a weekend where good pitching performances were hard to find, that tandem shone bright and gets a well-deserved shout out here.

THE PLAY BY PLAY

FRIDAY | UTSA 9 – Rice 2

UTSA struck early, getting to Rice front liner Cooper Chandler with a four-spot in the second inning before ultimately scratching across two more against him before he left the game, trailing 6-2. Those two Rice runs came courtesy of a Guy Garibay double and would be the only meaningful offensive contribution from the Owls for the remainder of the evening.

The Roadrunners would tack on a few insurance runs in the eighth and ninth innings, rendering a productive 3.2 inning relief appearance from Garret Zaskoda too little, too late. UTSA went on to win 9-2

SATURDAY | UTSA 15 – Rice 4

An error-plagued third inning allowed Rice baseball to take a 3-1 lead against UTSA on Saturday, their first lead of the series. It would not last long. UTSA struck back with six runs in the next half inning, driving Rice starter Alex DeLeon from the game after the frame, but not before the damage had been done.

Trailing 7-3, Rice would never get closer. UTSA would score eight more runs as the Rice lineup went 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position, stranding eight runners as any hopes of a rally dwindled by the inning. And that’s before taking into account a bizarre 45-minute delay to check the hat of pitcher Roel Garcia, which would prove fruitless.

SUNDAY | Rice 16 – UTSA 7

Aiming to avoid a sweep, Rice baseball responded on Sunday with one of their most impressive offensive outings of the entire season. The Owls struck for three in the first inning, adding two more in the third and two more in the fourth. Leading 7-3 after four, it felt like a missed opportunity to have only managed a 9-3 lead entering the eighth inning.

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

With closer Matthew Linskey on the mound, that didn’t seem to matter, until he allowed an uncharacteristic four runs to put the game very much so back in the balance. Leading 9-7, the offense did the rest. Rice batted around in the eighth, scoring seven runs to put an exclamation point on a long-awaited conference win.

ON DECK | at Southern Miss (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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