Anteaten alive: No. 1 TCU baseball rocked early, loses big to UC Irvine

UC Irvine scored eight runs in the bottom of the first inning en route to a lopsided 11-2 victory against top-ranked TCU on Friday night in the opener of a three-game series in Irvine, Calif.

Right-hander Brian Howard started for TCU and gave up all eight first-inning runs, yielding eight hits and recording only one out. Last week against LSU, Howard (2-2) gave up four runs in the first.

TCU (11-2) saw the end of a seven-game winning streak, which included a big rally against Texas A&M last weekend. The Horned Frogs face the Anteaters (8-4) at 4 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday.

Frogs freshman Jake Eissler pitched a stout five innings of relief, giving up three runs.

TCU scored twice in the fourth on Nolan Brown’s groundout RBI and Cam Warner’s RBI single to make it 8-2. Evan Skoug opened the inning with a walk and moved to third on a base hit by Josh Watson.

The Anteaters sent 13 batters to the plate in the first. With the bases loaded and one out, six straight Anteaters got a hit. Christian Kloss’ triple cleared the bases.

UCI got a run back in the fifth on back-to-back doubles. Two more runs crossed in the sixth to make it 11-2.

TCU freshmen Haylen Green and Cal Coughlin pitched the final 2  2/3 innings, holding UC Irvine to just two hits and striking out a combined five.

This story was originally published March 10, 2017 at 11:55 PM with the headline "Anteaten alive: No. 1 TCU baseball rocked early, loses big to UC Irvine."