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Saturday - April 22, 2006

Game 42: Nebraska at Texas

Well. It was not a good day for Texas baseball fans. It was not a good day for the Texas baseball team. Nebraska won 7-5. I thought today would be a good day to take some photos since the game would be on TV and if I missed anything, I could see it later. Alas, TimeWarner here in Austin changed the broadcast channel at the last moment and my TiVo did not get the change. The weasels. So, I ended up with Poker and Spurs basketball. How unfair is that? Ah, well.

Jennie and I got to the game fairly early so I took some photos before things got started. It was awfully hot in the sun, though, so I changed my mind about taking photos. I went back to my car and grabbed my scorebook before the game actually started since there was no way I was gonna be hanging around in the sunny aisles taking photos. When I got back into the park, I saw my pal Liz who has a couple of seats behind the Texas dugout. And, she was alone. So, I ended up sitting with her. And, the view was pretty good. So, I kept score and took photos. All from a lovely spot in the shade. And, I do think I got some fairly nice ones. So, that's some small consolation. More on that later.

Riley Boening ended up getting the start and he did quite well for the first four innings. He had several really nice defensive plays to back him up. In the 1st: Nimmo grounded out to 2b. Jaros reached on an infield single and advanced to 2b on a throwing error. Wehrle then lined to ss. Jaros broke for 3b on the play and was thrown out (6-4) before he could get back to 2b (double play). In the Texas half, Chance Wheeless and Carson Kainer singled but were stranded.

In the 2nd: Buckman walked (8 pitch plate appearance). Gorsett reached on a fielder's choice (6-4...a really nice play by Chais Fuller). Brown was hit by a pitch. Then, another double play. Christy hit a sharp grounder to 1b. Chance fielded the ball and threw to ss. Chais then threw to Riley covering 1b for the 2nd out. Two innings, two double plays. Cool. In the home half, the assault on the Nebraska starter (Watson) continued. Brett Lewis and Bradley Suttle both singled to start things off. Chais then hit a pretty sac bunt down the 3b line to move the runners up. Clay Van Hook then reached on a 6-5-4 fielder's choice (rbi, Brett scored). On the play, the ss threw to 3b to catch Bradley. Bradley broke back for 2b and got into a rundown. Clay saw what was happening and scampered safely to 2b. Nick Peoples singled up the middle to score Clay. On the throw in to the plate, Nick moved to 2b. Chance singled to rf and Tommy Harmon made an error that doesn't got recorded in the box score. He started that arm of his cranking and got Nick thrown out at the plate. The right fielder got to the ball quickly and made a perfect throw to the catcher. The throw beat Nick to the plate by 3 or 4 steps. Nick tried to slide under the catcher's tag but had no chance. Not a good decision on Coach Harmon's part.

In the 3rd: Opitz hit a shallow fly ball toward the lf/cf gap. It really looked like it was going to fall in between ss/lf/cf. But, somehow, Chais managed to run back hard and grab the ball over his shoulder. Spectacular. Mort struck out swinging. Then, Nimmmo hit another "lobby" ball more toward lf. Again, Chais made a stab at the ball and made another great over-the- shoulder catch. Very very pretty. In the home half, Drew Stubbs grounded out to 3b. Carson walked. Preston Clark doubled and moved Carson to 3b. Brett hit his second single of the day to plate both runners. Bradley singled (runners at the corners) to chase the starter. Shirek came on and got Chais to hit into a 3-6-3 double play.

In the 4th: Jaros flew out to cf. Wehrle popped out to 3b. Buckman singled past ss. Gorsett hit a high fly foul ball on the right side. Nick made a very long run to grab the ball at the last second. Yet another amazing play. It really looked like Texas could do no wrong defensively. Alas, that was before they got into the 5th. In the home half of the 4th: 3 up, 3 down.

In the 5th: Brown singled and moved to 2b on a wild pitch. Christy singled to drive Brown in. Opitz grounded out to 2b (Christy moved to 2b). Mort singled moving Christy to 3b. Nimmo walked (on 8 pitches). Good-bye Riley. Hello, Kenn Kasparek. Sigh. Jaros walked (5 pitches, rbi). Wehrle singled up the middle. On the rather routine play, Drew let the ball bounce under his glove and it rolled to the wall. Nick backed him up but the bases were cleared and Wehrle ended up at 3b. Good-bye, Kenn. Hello, Kyle Walker. Kyle got the first batter he saw to ground out to ss. Chais looked the runner at 3b back before making the throw to 1b. Good job. Again. By Chais. He had a really good game today. The next batter singled to plate Wehrle. Brown struck out swinging to end the misery. In the home half, Texas got a couple on but left them stranded.

The 6th and top of the 7th were fairly uneventful. In the home half of the 7th, Chance reached on a ground rule double. Drew singled (Chance moved to 3b). On the 3rd pitch to Carson, Drew broke for 2b and was caught stealing. Only, he wasn't. Bad call by Bill Davis, who did a pretty bad job behind the plate last night. He's one of the worst Big 12 umps (if not the worst) and it's always painful watching a game in which he's officiating. Sadly, Texas suffered as a result of him being on the field. Anyway. On the next pitch, Carson struck out swinging. But, it was a wild pitch that made it all the way to the backstop. Chance scored from 3rd and Carson was safe at 1b. Preston then hit a high fly ball to lf. I thought it was going out but the left fielder caught it right at the wall. Sadly, Carson had lost track of the number of outs. (He had, after all, just made the 2nd out of the inning when he struck out. Only, he didn't since he'd reached on the wild pitch. Sigh.) He was almost to 3b by the time the ball was caught and was throwing his helmet toward the dugout before realizing that Nebraska was about to get a double play. Which they did by throwing the ball back in to 1b. I was close enough to clearly see the confusion on his face. If he'd known there was only one out, he would've waited to see if the left fielder was going to catch the ball; he would not have assumed the home run. Another mental mistake by the Horns.

In the 8th, Nebraska nearly duplicated the run Texas scored in the 7th. Buckman reached on a double. He moved to 3b on a sac bunt. The next batter struck out. Then, with two outs, Opitz struck out swinging but the pitch went wild and Buckman scored from 3b while Opitz reached 1b safely. I do think that's the first time I've ever seen two teams score on wild pitch 3rd strikes in the same game. Amazing. By the way, Kyle walked the bases loaded before striking out Jaros to end the inning. Texas went down in order in the bottom of the inning (on 8 pitches).

Austin Wood went in for Texas in the 9th and sat Nebraska down in order. Texas actually got two on in the bottom of the 9th but Carson was called out on strikes (looking) to end the game. Yet another apparent bad call by the home plate umpire. I saw Hunter Harris (who was at 2b at the time of the call) indicating that the pitch was about a foot outside from his vantage point at 2b.

It's sad to lose a game this way. The team was really "on" for the first 4 innings and then just seemed to lose its focus. And, the officials stank up the place. That, my friends, is a very very bad combination and will not win many games.

I'll be back later with photos.

Posted by Joanna at 11:11 PM