Frogs try to shake Tuesday blues
Baseball team riding 3-game win streak
By Danny Gillham
Skiff Staff

Early in the 2003 season, the TCU baseball team is trying to rectify last season’s faults in nonconference play.

The Frogs (3-1) made their first step with a three-game sweep of University of Texas at San Antonio over the weekend. Now they face the obstacle that arguably cost the team postseason play in 2002.

The Tuesday mid-week game.

In 10 Tuesday games last season, the Frogs were 2-8, losing by an average of 5.5 runs.
Those losses helped contribute to a 11-18 nonconference record which helped keep TCU out of postseason play, despite a third-place finish in Conference USA and the No. 46 position in the RPI ratings.

TCU plays its first mid-week game today against Texas-Arlington (2-3) at 3:30 p.m. at Lupton Stadium.

Senior outfielder Chris Meeks said last season’s setbacks taught the team a lesson they won’t forget.

“I think it helped us to go through some of those things last year,” Meeks said. “We’re going to look back in April and May and say ‘Man we took care of business,’ or we’ll say ‘Man, I wish we would have taken care of business.’”

The Frogs lost their season opener to the University of Texas at Arlington, 5-3, and Meeks said the loss could be attributed to the attention surrounding the Frogs’ new field.

He also said the series with the University of Texas at San Antonio helped bring the team back down to earth.

“I think (the sweep) gives us a lot of steam heading into Tuesday,” Meeks said. “With all the hype of the new stadium opening, I think there were a lot of things going on and we got distracted instead of taking care of what we need to take care of.”

Junior pitcher Tim McGough echoed Meeks, and said the sweep of University of Texas at San Antonio more suited to the Frogs capabilities.

“I think the fans that showed up this weekend saw the TCU team that is going to be playing week in and week out,” McGough said. “I just think we are going to keep getting better and better as the year goes on.”

McGough was one of 11 pitchers used against the Roadrunners by head coach Lance Brown. Brown said on Sunday he is now unsure of who will take the mound for the Frogs today.

“We used a lot of people this weekend, more than we had hoped to — either because of pitch counts or injuries,” Brown said.

Danny Gillham
d.r.gillham@tcu.edu