Tech bats go cold in the Florida heat

Texas Tech baseball followers have had a blast watching Josh Jung doing his thing this season. Batting in the heart of the order for the surprising Texas Rangers, the former Red Raiders all-American leads Major League rookies with 12 home runs and just the other day was named the American League rookie of the month for the second month in a row.

Boy, could his old team have used some of Josh this past week. Maybe they could have at least put him on speakerphone and let Josh talk to Red Raider bats, the way he used to do with his own.

Mighty Florida doubled dipped Texas Tech in the championship round of the NCAA Gainesville Regional, the Gators' victories of 7-1 on Sunday night and 6-0 on Monday ending the Red Raiders' season. In the clincher, Florida catcher B.T. Riopelle launched a pair of two-run homers, projected top-five draft pick Wyatt Langford hit a solo shot and Brooks Wallace Award finalist Josh Rivera had three singles and an RBI.

"I think there's a group of guys that definitely weren't satisfied," Tech coach Tim Tadlock said of his team. "Definitely the end goal was to win the last game. I think they attacked that through the year. I think they understood that's what we were attacking. We just ran into a good club down here."

Everyone knew going in Florida has one of the nation's best lineups, at least three starting pitchers who have the attention of pro scouts — one perhaps more so for his bat — and a closer with double-digit saves.

Add in another reason why the Gators could contend in Omaha: Depth of pitching. In their fourth and fifth games of the regional, they were able to tap pitchers with ERAs in the 3s. In the two championship-round games against Tech, freshman lefthander Cade Fisher took a shutout into the eighth and sophomore righthander Ryan Slater blanked the Red Raiders through the first five.

Not even weekend starters, and they improved to 6-0 and 10-1, respectively.

Monday was Tech's first time to be shut out since a season-ending 9-0 loss to Stanford in a 2021 super regional.

When a pitcher makes Tech leadoff batter Nolen Hester uncomfortable, you know he's doing something right.

"They just pitched really methodical," said Hester, whose walk in the eighth extended his on-base streak to 50 games. "They threw a ton of strikes, didn't give up hardly any free passes. They were always pitching ahead against us, and so when you're up there in the box and you're down oh-2, 1-2 consistently, at bat after at bat, it's really hard to get offensive rhythm going. They just pitched really, really soundly."

Tech went 41-23, the program's sixth 40-win season under Tadlock. The Red Raiders finished sixth in the conference, but were one of the last three Big 12 teams standing in the NCAA tournament — not as good as Texas and TCU, who swept regionals in three games, not humiliated the way Oklahoma State was, going 0-2 as a regional host.

The Red Raiders probably ended about where they should have, given the team's pitching deficiencies, heightened by the late-season loss of a No. 2 starter.

The last thing the Red Raiders could afford, especially given the opponent, was to conk out with the bats. That's how it played out, though, and it's not a new thing, at least not in June.

In Tech's last 10 NCAA tournament games, the Red Raiders have scored three runs or fewer nine times and averaged 2.0 runs per game. That stretch started with the 2021 super regional against Stanford at Dan Law Field. Opposing pitching is part of it, and the settings probably have something to do with it.

At Dan Law Field, the Red Raiders are in a hitters' paradise: a southwest wind blowing out to left and — something rarely talked about — an elevation of 3,200 feet. The past two postseasons, in cities less than 300 feet above sea level, Tech scored eight runs in four games at the NCAA Statesboro Regional and nine runs in four games at the Gainesville Regional.

Freshman righthanders Zane Petty and Jacob Rogers gave Tech a chance against Florida. As we wrote after Sunday's game, Tadlock made the reasonable baseball decision not to test Petty a third time through the Florida order. On Monday, he didn't push Rogers past his usual limit.

Four innings was Rogers' season high. After Rogers yielded only Langford's solo homer in three innings, the Red Raiders wanted Josh Sanders to add to his recent scoreless-innings streak and see if Brandon Beckel could go one time through the order, Tadlock said. I wasn't expecting the latter, given Beckel threw on back-to-back days for the first time all season on Friday and Saturday, so Monday's game was his third in four days.

"When that went the wrong way," Tadlock said, "probably it was going to be tough from there."

It went haywire in a hurry. Sanders yielded a base hit to Rivera and Riopelle's first homer, making it 3-0 in the fourth. Rivera, with an RBI single, and Riopelle, with another homer, were at it again in the fifth against Beckel.

That didn't mask the Red Raiders' bigger issue on Sunday and Monday: One run in two games won't cut it on most weekends, and for sure not in June.

FLORIDA 6, TEXAS TECH 0

Texas Tech 000 000 000 — 0 4 2

Florida 000 123 00x — 6 11 0

Slater, Abner (6), Neely (8) and Riopelle; Rogers, J. Sanders (4), Beckel (5), Free (6), Coombes (8) and Maxcey. W—Slater (10-1). L—Rogers (2-3). 2B—Texas Tech, Green (14). HR—Florida, Langford (18), Riopelle 2 (15). Records: Texas Tech 41-23, Florida 48-15.