At some point, every TCU baseball player has to experience it.
Lupton Magic, they call it.
Usually, just not so early in a season. But the phenomenon more common to May and June postseason games in Fort Worth sure got a warm embrace from the Horned Frogs in their Big 12 opener against Texas on a Friday night in March.
Adam Oviedo’s single fell in left field behind a five-man infield to score Austin Henry and complete a 3-2 comeback victory. The Frogs scored three runs in the ninth inning without an out against starter Bryce Elder, who hit the leadoff batter, and closer Kamron Fields, who followed with a walk, two wild pitches that scored a run, gave up a single to tie the game and then the single that won it.
“Yeah, so against Grand Canyon, I had a sneak peek. I thought, ‘Oh, man, this is pretty cool,’ ” said Alex Isola, a junior college transfer in his first season in Fort Worth, who led off the ninth. “The other day at the alumni luncheon, I told them that. They said, ‘Oh, that’s not even close to what it gets like.’”
Nope, not at all. Grand Canyon was a routine non-conference series in front of a few hundred in chilly February. This was a conference series matching two of the league’s top aces, a scoreless game into the eighth inning, with 5,590 loud and standing fans from both teams on a perfect spring night.
“It’s amazing. Best atmosphere in the world,” said Johnny Rizer, whose single tied the game and whose homer-robbing catch kept it scoreless in the fourth. “It was awesome. Let’s just keep bringing it.”
The Longhorns appeared to have literally stolen the game with a steal of home plate in the eighth, followed by a sacrifice fly in the ninth against TCU freshman Marcelo Perez.
Then … magic.
Aka, baseball.
“That’s baseball. You just put the ball in play, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Oviedo said. “Tonight was a great example of that.”
Isola said he was glad to see Elder, the starter who had shut down the Frogs for eight innings, remain in the game for Texas in the ninth because he felt good about his at-bats against him. The TCU catcher said he was taking all the way. The second pitch hit him, and Texas coach David Pierce turned to Fields.
Jake Guenther walked on seven pitches. A wild pitch moved the runners, and another wild pitch scored a run.
Austin Henry walked on seven pitches to put runners on the corners, and Rizer — who prevented a two-run home run in the fourth inning by scaling the wall — singled in the tying run with a sharp hit to right on a 1-2 pitch.
Oviedo lifted the second pitch he saw to shallow left, where it fell in front of charging Eric Kennedy’s glove.
“My first walkoff,” Oviedo said. “Actually my second, but first career here as a Horned Frog. That felt awesome. Man, that’s stuff you dream of. That’s why you come to TCU. You want to live that moment.”
Lupton Stadium has seen plenty of such moments. Who will forget the comeback from 8-1 with two outs and the bases empty in the eighth inning against N.C. State in a 2015 regional?
“The fans really do play a huge part,” said Oviedo, a sophomore from Alvarado in his second year at TCU. “When the game is really close and you need that extra boost, it does have the opposite effect for the opposing team. I think that pitcher was starting to feel a lot more pressure. The fans really do play a big part in the game for TCU.”
TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle didn’t want to make too much of the moment. But he was glad his team got to experience it.
“This is what it’s like on Friday night,” he said. “This is what it’s like in postseason, and this is how you have to be able to slow the game down. I saw a couple of new players speed up a little bit in their at-bats.”
The rally gave TCU seven consecutive wins at home against Texas. The Frogs (14-6) are on a season-long five-game winning streak.
“We can’t put too much meaning in one game,” Schlossnagle said. “That’s what I told the team — ‘Alright, awesome, we’re 1-0 in conference play.’ But the only way you justify it as a good win is by playing well tomorrow.”
What could tomorrow do to top tonight?
Another home run takeaway at the wall? Another daring steal of home plate by the Longhorns? Another outstanding start like the one turned in by Nick Lodolo? The TCU junior left-hander went eight innings and struck out nine, giving up only a run on a steal of home plate.
“That right there, him catching that ball helped us win the ballgame,” Lodolo said of Rizer’s feat. “Other than that, I don’t know if we would have won.”
Who ever really knows what will happen? It’s baseball.
Aka, magic.
(Photo: TCU Athletics)