FORT WORTH — It’s a basic of baseball.
“Not taking bad plays in the field to the plate and vice versa,” as TCU pitcher Chuck King put it.
His catcher, Alex Isola, sure could have.
The junior backstop’s passed ball allowed the go-ahead run to score in the eighth inning, and his wayward throw to first on a chopper a batter later kept the inning alive for another run to score.
“Yeah, he hadn’t had the best game, obviously,” coach Jim Schlossnagle said.
But the game includes hitting, and Isola got a chance in the ninth. Hitting after Andrew Keefer’s game-tying two-run double and an intentional walk to Conner Shepherd, Isola crushed a high fastball for a no-doubter over the fence in left field for his team’s second walk-off home run in two games.
It was Isola’s fifth homer, but first since March 16 against Eastern Michigan.
“Like we talk about, and as I just told him right there, the only at-bat that matters is the next one,” Schlossnagle said. “I think he felt a lot of confidence there. He’s a confident player. He started off great in the season for us, but I was just talking with Coach Mo this morning, when’s the last time that guy hit a home run, even in batting practice? It kind of left us for a little while.”
It never went too far. It just needed the right moment.
“Baseball’s a sport where you’ve got to have a short memory,” Isola said. “Had some unlucky things today. Just tried to stay composed and be in the present moment.”
So the 6-foot-1, 215-pound athlete from Lincoln, Calif., indeed stepped to the plate with confidence for his turn against Jayhawks closer Jonah Ulane.
“Worked it to 3-1, took a pitch that I thought was ball four. I said, ‘Alright, I wanted to hit anyway.’ He left one elevated. That guy was 94% fastballs, so I knew what I was getting with him. Just tried to put my best swing on it, stay short. A good thing happened.”
It was one of the hardest-hit balls of the season at Lupton Stadium. By anyone.
“I haven’t driven a ball to the pull side like that in a while,” the right-handed hitter said. “It felt good. I knew it was gone off the bat. I was pretty pumped up. I blacked out for a second, to be honest.”
The blast won the series for TCU, its second in a row following a series win at West Virginia last week. The Frogs (28-20, 10-10) have won five of six after losing eight of nine.
Shepherd’s walk-off solo home run Friday gave TCU a 4-3 victory in Game 1 of the series. The Frogs hadn’t had a walk-off homer since 2010. Now they have two in two games after suffering three walk-off losses in Big 12 games this year.
“I’m not going to lie. It feels good to be on the winning end of two in a row,” Isola said. “We’ve had a lot of tough losses. But everybody in life who’s successful has come from some struggles. So for us, it’s going to be kind of our rallying cry as we go into the next few games and on into the postseason.”
Speaking of postseason, TCU remains a long shot. But why spoil the party? A win is a win, and the Frogs will take as many as they can as the close of the regular season draws near.
“We need every win. Every single win,” Schlossnagle said. “They all have massive value. I’m not talking about NCAA stuff. Just for this team to feel good about itself.”
That’s already happened. Despite a list of injuries that now includes closer Marcelo Perez, TCU looks much like the team that started the year, with good starting pitching, pop in the lineup and a feeling that something good will happen.
Especially at home. In a tie game. In the ninth inning.
“It’s like you can almost feel it in the air. It’s like you can feel, ‘Oh, man, it’s coming,’” King said. “And everyone starts getting pumped up, everyone starts talking about it, ‘Oh, hey, he’s going to hit it over, it’s going to be a walk-off right here.’ When that kind of energy starts buzzing in the ballpark, it’s hard to stop us. It’s hard to stop our lineup when that kind of energy comes in the ballpark.”
