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Rice Baseball hits their way past Sam Houston in 11-4 win

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Rice Baseball hit their way past Sam Houston on Tuesday, sweeping the early season series against the Bearkats.

Through three innings, the early season rematch between Rice baseball and Sam Houston was tracking to be a mirror image of the teams’ first meeting last week. That prior contest was a pitcher’s duel featuring one run combined between both teams until the bottom of the ninth inning. That’s how things were looking through three innings on Tuesday night with both teams deadlocked at zeroes. Then the bats woke up.

Last Time Out: Rice Baseball shows sparks, but swept by Stanford

Manny Garza opened the scoring with a 2-RBI double in the fourth. Aaron Smigelski added one more RBI via a hit-by-pitch before Benjamin Rosengard delivered a grand slam, staking Rice to a 6-0 lead. Sam Houston would get three runs back in the bottom half of the inning after JD McCracken loaded the bases, but the Bearkats couldn’t keep up with the Owls’ newly awoken offense.

Sam Houston would score one more run from that point onward, a solo shot in the seventh off Rice reliever Matthew Linskey. He gave way to Krishna Raj and Ryland Urbanczyk who shut the home team out in the final two innings to secure the win.

What it means | Runs!!!

After scoring 11 runs in their last four games, the Rice bats generated 11 runs in nine innings on Tuesday night. Nathan Becker got into the action with his first hit of the season. Smigelski drove in not one, but two runs as a hit batsman. Altogether, eight of the Owls’ nine starters reached base. Several, did so multiple times.

Names to Know: Under the radar Rice Baseball players for the 2023 season

One midweek performance does not a season make, but it’s a positive early indicator. Rice didn’t score double-digit runs last season until a March 15 game against SFA. They’d scored two runs or fewer eight times to that point. Rice has been held to two or fewer runs twice this season, but the early spikes cannot be ignored. The offense is going to be better.

ON DECK | Shriners Classic – vs Texas Tech (Fri), vs Texas A&M (Sat), vs TCU (Sun)

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Rice Baseball 2023: Names to Know — Pitching

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Entering Year 2 under head coach Jose Cruz Jr the Rice baseball roster is starting to take shape. Here are a few names to know on the mound.

Rice baseball will look to significantly retool its pitching staff this season. In addition to the hiring of Parker Bangs, a new pitching coach, this offseason, the Owls will also turnover a sizable portion of their staff and likely introduce a host of players to new roles.

Moving On

From purely an innings-pitched perspective, Rice will have to replace its top five arms from last year’s team. Cooper Chandler, Alex DeLeon, Roel Garcia, Thomas Burbank and Brandon Deskins have moved on, leaving a vacuum of mound time to back fill. That quintet accounted for 251 of 485.2 innings pitched, representing more than 50 percent of the innings worked by the entire 2022 staff.

Coming Back

While they are losing a lot of innings, the cupboard isn’t completely bare. Closer Matthew Linskey, who led the team with a 3.00 ERA last season, returns to the squad and could be stretched out to take advantage of his talents for more than an inning or two per weekend. Also back is Parker Smith, who made a strong case to be higher in the weekend rotation at the end of last season and throughout summer ball.

Blake Brogdon, who has been a weekend rotation guy in prior seasons, is back for his fifth season at South Main. It’ll be interesting to watch how his role plays out as well as a guy like Micah Davis that flashed his talents last year but lacked consistent command. Tom Vincent, Reed Gallant, Cristian Cienfuegos and Garret Zaskoda return as potential bullpen options.

Added to the Mix

The list of newcomers who will be in the mix is long. Rice added Mauricio Rodriguez from the JUCO ranks as well as Krishna Raj (Charleston Southern, Tulane), Hayden Durke (Louisiana), JD McCracken (Tennessee) and Tyler Hamilton (Texas Tech) from the Transfer Portal. Additionally, they converted Justin Long from catcher to hurler, and word of his development has been very positive throughout the offseason.

More: Expectations rise for Rice Baseball, Cruz Jr. in Year 2

Past that, there’s a strong compliment of freshman arms that will get looks. Head coach Jose Cruz Jr. singled out Ryland Urbanczyk and Garrett Stratton as early standouts at the onset of preseason practices, which would likely make the front runners in that regard. The Owls also added Marco Fuentes, Jake Crews and Tanner Fox in their incoming freshman class.

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