FORT WORTH — The sun does come up. Doesn’t it?
“I always wonder,” Jim Schlossnagle said.
Lately, the TCU baseball coach has been wondering more than usual. His team lost for the seventh time in eight games Saturday, this time a 15-2 whipping in Game 2 of a Big 12 series against Baylor.
Budding ace Chuck King lasted only 2 1/3 innings. Baylor racked up 15 hits, one off the scoreboard in left field. The Frogs tacked two more errors to an unseemly total of 12 in five games. Right fielder Hunter Wolfe is probably done for the year with a broken ankle, suffered going for a ball at the fence.
At least there’s a game the next day. Right?
Schlossnagle offered a wry smile. “I always wonder if the sun’s going to come up. And it always does.
“Again I’ll question it. We’ll see.”
If it doesn’t, Schlossnagle might willingly take the blame. The veteran coach in his 16th season, approaching 700 victories leading the Horned Frogs, puts himself at the front of the list for the season’s shortcomings.
“We’ve set some standards about a level of play here,” he said. “There’s some people in that group that are part of setting those standards, and we’re failing to meet those standards. And that’s not them. That’s us. That’s me. That’s me included. That’s me at the forefront of it. I’m not lowering those standards. It’s not OK. You’re going to be held accountable. I should be held accountable. The assistant coaches have to be held accountable. Everybody gets held accountable. That’s life.”
Quite unpredictable, life. For the Frogs in 2019, it began so promisingly.
The team knocked off No. 1 Vanderbilt in the third game, part of a tidy 6-2 start.
Then two-time All-American pitcher Jared Janczak, recovering from two off-season surgeries, got shelled in a 12-2 loss to Rice and went on the shelf.
Promising freshman leadoff hitter Porter Brown suffered a separated shoulder that required season-ending surgery.
Veteran righty Jake Eissler got a shot in the rotation and got bucked out of the saddle.
The bullpen gave away a series against Oklahoma State. And others.
The buzz from an encouraging pair of wins at Oklahoma that got the Frogs to 20-10 and 5-4 in the league on April 7 lasted two days. Since then, the Frogs are 3-8 and 1-4.
And there’s one more game to go against Baylor, a veteran team with a tough lineup led by the Big 12’s best catcher, Shea Langeliers, who knocked that ball off the scoreboard to drive in three runs and kick off an eight-run third inning.
The Bears have now beaten the Frogs in six straight. Saturday, it was in front of 5,556 on the type of sunglasses-required afternoon that reminds of seemingly long ago, better days for the home team.
“We had a good crowd here today, man,” Schlossnagle said. “If we were having some kind of good season or a good stretch and you hit one of those days — because we’ve certainly had those days with really good teams — I could live with it. But, man. As Coach Parcells said, you are what your record says you are. My dumb rear end still believes that we’re going to play great tomorrow and we’re going to play great on Tuesday and we’re going to go on the road and have a good series at West Virginia next week.”
They’ll get the chance. The sun will come up. That’s a promise.
