Baseball faces ECU tonight
Frogs travel to take on the 20th-ranked Pirates for 3 games
Danny Gillham
Skiff Staff

The TCU baseball team will be in action this weekend when they face Conference USA opponent East Carolina in a three-game series.

Erin Munger/SKIFF STAFF Junior outfielder Gregg Bratton takes a swing during a game at the TCU Diamond. The Frogs, who lost their first Conference USA series last week, look to rebound against No. 20-ranked East Carolina this weekend in Greenville, N.C.

The Frogs (9-14, 1-2 C-USA) will be traveling to Greenville, N.C. to face the 20th-ranked Pirates (14-3-1, 1-1-1 C-USA) today at 6 p.m at Harrington Field.

This series will be the second for the team in C-USA — its first on the road. In the opening series last weekend, the Frogs dropped two of three to Southern Mississippi.

After stressing the importance of conference play all year, head coach Lance Brown said he was disappointed in the Frogs’ performance last weekend.

“We pitched and ran bases poorly,” Brown said, “and we played defense badly. Southern Mississippi wasn’t one of the better teams we have played all year.”

With talk of fatigue plaguing the team (TCU played 11 games in 14 days) the Frogs had four days without a game to rest and prepare for the Pirates.

ECU enters the series after finishing 1-1-1 in their opening conference series against Cincinnati. ECU is third in the conference in team batting average (.318), and first in team ERA (3.28) and home runs (27).

However, ranked opponents have been somewhat of a specialty for TCU this season. The Frogs are 3-1 against nationally-ranked opponents this season (beating No. 9 Texas, No. 16 Baylor and No. 12 Notre Dame before losing to No. 18 Texas last week).

Brown said the ranking of East Carolina does not pose any intimidation on the ballclub.

“I don’t think that East Carolina will be better than the people that we have played,” Brown said. “When you look at USC, Notre Dame, Baylor, Texas and (Texas) Tech, they will be comparable to them. But we’ve proven that we can play when we want to play with people. We can play with probably anyone in the country.”

With the string of inconsistency that the Frogs have possessed over the season, Brown said that the team will look to get on track and stay there.

“It’s a mystery why we don’t play any better than we do more often,” Brown said. “It seems like we play one or two good games, and then one or two bad games. We have to become more consistent. Hopefully we will find an answer.”

After the 6 p.m. game today, the series will continue on Saturday and Sunday, with both of those games starting at 11 a.m. This is a change from the original scheduled time, due to the Frogs’ traveling schedule.

Danny Gillham
d.r.gillham@student.tcu.edu

credits

TCU Daily Skiff © 2002