|
Frogs’
losing streak extends to five games A week ago things were looking good for the Horned Frog baseball team. They were sitting at the top of the Conference USA standings and had just come off a dominating three-game sweep of Saint Louis.
What a difference a week makes. In that time, TCU (20-22, 11-7 C-USA) has lost five in a row, its longest skid of the season, including going 0 for 3 in a key conference series with Tulane. The fifth loss came at the hands of Metroplex rival Texas-Arlington, who hammered the Horned Frogs 15-1 at the TCU Diamond Tuesday. Head coach Lance Brown, whose birthday was Tuesday, was hardly in the mood to celebrate, as he watched seven TCU pitchers give up eight earned runs on 17 hits. The Frogs also walked four batters on the afternoon. Just as bad was the defense. The Horned Frog defense committed five errors during the contest, its largest amount in one game this season. The usually productive TCU offense was shut down on Tuesday, thanks to the pitching of Maverick junior Aaron Pullin. Pullin, who pitched on three days rest, used a mixture of fastball and breaking pitches to keep the Frog lineup off-balance. He went seven innings, tossed 101 pitches, gave up no earned runs, four hits, walked one and struck out five. The lone run for TCU came in the sixth inning, on an RBI-single by junior first baseman Ryan Weems, scoring junior outfielder Terry Trofholz. Pullin’s counterpart on the mound, sophomore Aaron Tims, didn’t have the same type of day. Tims managed to go only one inning, giving up three runs on three hits and two walks. Tims’s replacements didn’t fair much better. Of the six relief pitchers, only freshman Chris White and senior Josh Gardner kept the Mavericks from scoring on their watch. One of the few positives that can be taken from the game was the continued hitting streak of Trofholz. Currently leading the conference in hitting with a .474 average, Trofholz’s double in the third inning extended his hitting streak to fifteen games. He has hit safely in 23 of his last 24 games and 34 of 38 as a starter this season. The Frogs will hope to get back on track this weekend in a critical three-game series with conference foe Louisville. Currently standing in fourth place, the Frogs are two games from first-place Louisville. TCU is also four games from eighth, which is the last spot that a team can be in to participate in the C-USA tournament. Danny
Gillham |
|||
|
TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
||||
