It was on a crisp afternoon in Arizona that TCU defeated Vanderbilt, the then-No. 1 team in the country, by a score of 10-2.
The future appeared bright for the baseball Frogs on that February day. The lineup was resourceful. The pitching displayed promise. The new faces were blending in.
TCU was ranked No. 19 by D1Baseball.com and seemed destined to rise.
Two months later . . .
The coach is out of wake-up calls.
The Frogs have fallen into a deep slumber. The 9-3 loss to Dallas Baptist on Tuesday dropped their record to 23-16.
Last year’s team, beset by injuries, was 21-18 at a similar point. Despite a 12-5 finish to the season, it failed to make the NCAA tournament, only the second team in the Jim Schlossnagle era to not be named to the 64-team field.
The same fate looms for the 2019 club, which hosts a pivotal series this weekend against Baylor.
Once ranked as high as 18th, the Frogs have vanished from the top 25. In D1Baseball’s latest projections for the NCAA tourney bracket, TCU is not included. The Frogs are listed among the “first five out.”
A Schlossnagle-coach TCU team has never missed the NCAA postseason two years in a row.
What’s the message he planned to deliver to his team, Schlossnagle was asked?
The coach shook his head.
“I’ve tried all the messages,” Schlossnagle said.
Indeed, he’s used them all – pitch better, throw strikes, command the fastball, command anything.
Plus, a frequent exhortation: stop beating yourselves. Frogs infielders and pitchers have to be leading the nation (granted, an unofficial stat) in botched bunt plays. Two more figured in Tuesday’s defeat.
“I’ve never had a team that can’t get an out on a bunt,” Schlossnagle said.
The recurring problems have Schloss at a loss to explain.
“I haven’t coached this team any different,” he said. “But it seems like the things we’re worst at are the things we work on the most. It seems like the more we do it, the worst we get at it.
“That’s what our season has been. That’s what last weekend was — not getting outs on bunts, getting a comebacker and throwing it into center field. These are all the things we’ve prided ourselves on for 16 years.”
The Frogs have lost five of their last six.
Yet, they remain 6-6 in the Big 12 with series wins over Texas and Oklahoma.
“As ugly as baseball is, it can be just as beautiful quickly,” Schlossnagle said. “We have four series left. Win four series and we’ll be conference champions.
“But you’ve got to play good baseball to do it. You can’t just stand around and talk about it.”
He has tried the talk part all season. A few weeks of verbally challenging his pitching staff, however, have not produced the desired results.
After dropping the series at Kansas State last weekend, TCU’s staff earned run average sat at 4.23. If you take out ace lefty Nick Lodolo’s numbers, the ERA is 4.91.
The bullpen has been discouragingly inconsistent. After starter Jared Janczak was lifted after three innings Tuesday, six TCU relievers followed him to the mound and gave up 11 hits and 14 baserunners.
The Frogs have 14 games remaining in the regular season – the four Big 12 series (home series against Baylor and Kansas, difficult road trips to West Virginia and Texas Tech), plus midweek games against Lamar and Abilene Christian.
“That’s the weird thing,” Schlossnagle said. “As ugly as we’ve played, we still have all the things in front of us. If you win series the rest of the way in the Big 12, you still can win the conference.”
The shadow that remains over that scenario, however, is the same one that cost TCU a 2018 NCAA invitation, even after the Frogs stretched their fate into the final inning of the final game of the Big 12 tournament.
It’s TCU’s RPI rating, usually a key factor in the tourney committee’s vote.
TCU is 75th on the RPI list. Among the other conference teams, Texas Tech ranks 17th, West Virginia 18th, Oklahoma State 21st, Baylor 33rd, Oklahoma 36th and Texas 39th. By beating TCU twice last weekend, Kansas State leaped over the Frogs into 70th place.
It’s difficult to imagine the NCAA selectors would leave out the Big 12’s regular season champion. But after last season’s 12-5 finish and subsequent NCAA snub, Schlossnagle has to wonder if winning a Big 12 title, tournament or regular season, is going to be this team’s only postseason hope.
Series wins on the road at Morgantown and Lubbock likely would be enough to remedy that. But that seems to be a tall order for a team that’s 8-9 over the past 30 days.
And here’s something else in the RPI fine print: simply playing the games against Abilene Christian (RPI No. 176) and Lamar (197th) will likely drop TCU’s ranking. Another timely rainstorm may be in the Frogs’ forecast.
“I don’t want to bang on the players,” Schlossnagle said. “Ultimately, it’s on me.
“And I don’t know. We’ve got to figure something out.”