FORT WORTH – After getting their collective posteriors buttered and beaten soundly Saturday night and then falling behind 7-2 on Sunday, a palpable gloom appeared to descend upon the TCU faithful at Lupton Stadium.
Lupton Magic was in the throes of Lupton misery.
Understand that since TCU’s athletic renaissance, losing to Texas – in anything – is no longer considered a conciliatory option.
Not in football, Not in basketball. Not in where the band sits. Not in who gets to reserve the First Base Porch. And especially, especially not in baseball games at Lupton.
Thus came Sunday’s mood. Texas jumped ahead 3-0 in the first inning and built the lead to 5-1 in the fourth and 7-2 headed into the bottom of the sixth.
As the Longhorns batted in their half of that sixth inning, TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle had semi-calmly walked to the mound for a chat with relief pitcher Chuck King, who had just botched a slow grounder back to the mound.
As Schlossnagle related the visit, “I just told him, ‘I need you to keep it right here. Do your best to keep it right here, because the way this park is playing today, we’re going to get a couple of guys on and somebody’s going to get one up in the wind and we’re going to be right back in it.’
“I firmly believed the way this place was playing today, that we could get back in the game if we just didn’t give them too much of a lead.”
And that’s Schloss for you. Not only can he read the zephyrs at Lupton Stadium, but he can also commune with its spirits.
A brief history lesson:
June, 2014 – TCU goes 22 innings against Sam Houston State in the second-longest game (6 hours, 55 minutes) in NCAA regional history. An errant throw in the bottom of the 21st scores the would-be winning run and the visiting Bearkats rush onto the field to celebrate. But the umpires rule the Sam Houston State runner had interfered while trying to break up the double play.
The run is disallowed. Boomer White wins it for TCU in the 22nd. The game ends at 2:30 a.m.
Lupton Magic.
June, 2015 – TCU was on the verge of NCAA regional elimination, trailing 8-1 in the eighth inning against North Carolina State. The Frogs rally, win 9-8 in the 10th and go on to the Super Regional.
Lupton Magic.
June, 2015 again – Texas A&M ties the deciding game of the Super Regional 4-4 in the ninth inning. The teams play into the 16th inning with a trip to Omaha at stake. In the bottom of the 16th, TCU’s Garrett Crain ignores the odds – and his coach’s signal — and scores from second on a high-hopping grounder to the Aggies’ third baseman.
The game takes 5 hours, 55 minutes, after which Schlossnagle says, “In 25 years of coaching, that’s the best baseball game that I’ve ever been part of. It had to be, considering what was on the line.”
Lupton Magic.
True, this time it was only March. And as Schlossnagle himself said Sunday, after the Frogs had scored 11 runs in their final three innings to win 12-8, there is a lot of baseball yet to be played.
Schlossnagle knows, though, what games such as Sunday’s mean for TCU fans. How would your school feel if another team’s football coach had once called you “cockroaches?”
“That’s as gritty of a performance by a TCU team as I’ve had here in 16 years,” Schlossnagle assessed. “To be down – what, 7-2? — against a good pitching staff. It seemed every time we would scratch for a run, we would walk somebody and give them more life.
“But our position players never gave in, and Marcelo [Perez] was awesome.
“I’m just really proud of our team. I hope we can build on it.”
That would be the plan. Look, the Longhorns have played what may be the toughest schedule in the country. Texas is going to be fine.
But for a TCU team that’s still trying to learn about itself, what happened Sunday can help provide a bold base to build upon.
First, Schlossnagle still needs to find his Saturday starter. Right-hander Jake Eissler was lights out as a reliever to begin the season, but his two innings in Saturday’s 13-1 defeat may have ended for now his trial as a starter.
“The key to us sustaining it is starting pitching,” Schlossnagle said. “Everybody gets tired of me saying it, but the game begins and ends with starting pitching — period. And two of our three starts this weekend were not good.
“Luckily we battled, luckily we have a pretty good offensive team. But that’s not what championship baseball is built on. It’s built on pitching, starting pitching. We’ve got to find some sort of combination because there’s no Triple-A and [Jared] Janczak is not close.”
The Frogs pounded out 15 hits Sunday and stroked four home runs. The bottom of the batting order – Adam Oviedo, Conner Shepherd and Andrew Keefer – combined for six hits and four RBIs.
“I love our lineup,” Schlossnagle said. “It’s got good balance to it. Doesn’t have whole lot of speed, outside of a few guys. But I like the competitiveness.
“What Adam and Shepherd have brought to the lineup after not being good offensive players last year has made it what it is, because it now has depth.”
Though it wasn’t abundantly windy, balls hit into the air Sunday at Lupton seemed to be carrying. Three of the four TCU homers, though, recorded exit velocities of at least 100 mph.
It wasn’t the wind, in other words. It was what was in the air.
The coach could tell.
On Friday night, the Frogs rallied to win in the bottom of the ninth. On Sunday, they scored 11 runs to come from behind in the final three innings and win a series that Texas rightly has to figure it could have swept.
Never, in other words, leave Lupton Stadium early.