TCU baseball, in need of good news, gets some from Jared Janczak

Right-hander Jared Janczak’s return with three perfect innings at Cal last week provided an emotional shot in the arm for a TCU team still not far removed from the loss of Luken Baker, coach Jim Schlossnagle said.

“He completely set the tone for the game and, actually, for the weekend,” Schlossnagle said Monday as the Horned Frogs headed to Oklahoma City to prepare for their opener in the Big 12 tournament. “The worst case would have been to see him go out there and struggle and not feel great and kind of be back at ground zero. But he felt good. After going through Baker’s injury, that was a nice positive lift.”

Pitching for the first time since April 14, Janczak started and used just 27 pitches to retire all nine batters he faced in a 3-0 victory. He threw a first-pitch strike to the first eight batters, never faced a count worse than 2-1 (and that, only once) and missed the strike zone just six times.

“It’s hard to have only 27 pitches in three innings if you strike out four guys, so he was incredibly efficient and aggressive and got ground balls,” Schlossnagle said. “We played good defense behind him. And he still felt like he had more in the tank. It was a good first step for him and a good confidence booster for our team.”

Janczak (7-0, 2.14), a sophomore from Belton, missed four starts because of a shoulder strain. He has been the Frogs’ most consistent starter and has twice taken no-hitters into the seventh inning this season.

He and Nick Lodolo will start the first two games of the Big 12 tournament for TCU, although the order has not been determined, and Brian Howard would likely start a third game, Schlossnagle said.

“I thought we had three really good starts last weekend, and you could almost say three and a half, because Nick Lodolo came in right behind Janczak and pitched really well,” Schlossnagle said. “Nick was 37 pitches in three-plus innings. It works out perfect because it’s not a complete week off, which you don’t normally want in baseball, but it’s a little less work for Nick, gives him a chance to kind of catch his breath. Howard wasn’t as good as he was against Oklahoma, but he was good. And I thought Mitchell Traver after the first inning, it was the best he’s pitched in a while. That’s a good sign.”

This story was originally published May 22, 2017 at 6:53 PM with the headline "TCU baseball, in need of good news, gets some from Jared Janczak."