Frogs look, play like No. 1 team in finishing Penn State sweep

If TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle wanted to get strong starts out of his veteran pitchers, action for his freshman arms, confidence-building hits for the lineup, action on the base paths, while also winning every game of the season-opening series against Penn State, there is nothing left to ask.

The Horned Frogs completed a virtuoso weekend as the nation’s No. 1 team with a 9-3 victory against Penn State on Sunday at Lupton Stadium.

Luken Baker and Cam Warner hit their first home runs, freshman left-hander Nick Lodolo struck out seven in five innings to win his first start, and the Frogs stole six bases to complete a three-game set in which they outscored the Nittany Lions of the Big Ten 27-7.

“It’s a long season. But it’s a good start,” coach Jim Schlossnagle said.

The Frogs, who got six innings from veteran starters Jared Janczak and Brian Howard in the first two games of the series, have a 2.00 team ERA, 26 strikeouts and six walks in 27 innings pitched after the sweep. They are hitting .272 with three home runs and averaged nine runs a game in producing just the fourth 3-0 start in Schlossnagle’s 14 seasons at TCU.

“It was good to get out there and play someone other than ourselves,” said Baker, who played first base in two of the games and hit his first home run of the season, a solo blast to left center in the fifth inning. “The pitching staff looked awesome. Finally getting a break from us.”

Warner went 2 for 4 and also hit his first home run, a two-run drive that followed Baker’s in the fifth. The senior second baseman stole home in the second inning for a 2-2 tie after Ryan Merrill was caught in a rundown between first and second.

TCU also executed a double steal of second and third with Austen Wade and Evan Skoug in the third inning.

The Frogs were 6-for-8 running and are 7 for 9 on the season.

“I told the team before the game, the one thing that Penn State hadn’t seen out of us, just because of the way the games had turned out, was our base running,” Schlossnagle said. “Which we feel like is a big strength of our team. So in the second and third inning, you saw a lot of that.”

The Frogs also got to see Lodolo, the promising left-hander who was the highest-drafted player not to sign professionally last year. Lodolo gave up a double and a home run (to Willie Burger, who also homered in the seventh inning) with two outs in the first inning, but he finished the frame with the first of seven strikeouts and did not give up a run after that.

In his final inning, Lodolo struck out the side around a double, a wild pitch and a walk to keep a 5-2 lead.

“He threw 82 pitches through five innings, which is a lot,” Schlossnagle said. “But he also battled. We were going to get him there before that last out in the fifth, but coach (Kirk) Saarloos kind of fought for him a little bit, which is what you want out of your pitching coach. He said, ‘Hey, let me go fire him up.’ He went out there to try to give him some confidence, and it worked out.”

Freshmen Jake Eissler, Cal Coughlin and Haylen Green combined pitched the remaining four innings, allowing a run on two hits with three strikeouts.

This story was originally published February 19, 2017 at 3:45 PM with the headline "Frogs look, play like No. 1 team in finishing Penn State sweep."