TCU baseball falls again to Dallas Baptist. But Frogs ready for (possible) rematch
TCU baseball continued its struggles against Dallas Baptist on Tuesday night. The Horned Frogs haven’t won a game against their crosstown rivals since 2018, dropping five straight.
The latest loss was a blown lead by the Frogs as the Patriots rallied for a 6-5 victory at Lupton Stadium. DBU had a 6-1 home victory on April 12. TCU coach Kirk Saarloos had a message to his team afterward.
“We’ve got to get ready to practice tomorrow,” Saarloos said. “Remember what that feels like. They beat us earlier in the year. Now they beat us here.
“We’re going to run into them again probably later on this year.”
Saarloos is alluding to a potential matchup in the NCAA Tournament. TCU and DBU were in the same region a year ago with DBU winning its matchup with TCU and going on to take the Fort Worth Regional.
The programs didn’t meet in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. In 2019, DBU swept the two-game regular-season series as well. The 2018 season is the last time TCU has defeated DBU.
“I thought it was a good baseball game overall,” Saarloos said. “We just didn’t get enough outs in the eighth inning and that cost us.”
TCU had a 5-2 lead going into the eighth inning before it unraveled by giving up four runs in the eighth. DBU had its first three batters reach on base hits and eventually took a 6-5 lead on a two-out single by Miguel Santos.
The Frogs had a chance to answer in the bottom of the eighth. TCU third baseman Brayden Taylor led off with a single up the middle and moved to third on a double by Kurtis Byrne. But the Frogs couldn’t get Taylor home with no outs as the next two batters struck out followed by an inning-ending groundout.
Asked if he thought about putting on a squeeze play to tie the game, Saarloos said: “No. With Coach (Bill Mosiello) it just comes down to we’re going to stand in there and hit.
“As you could tell, they were thinking about it too in terms of having the third baseman over there, trying to keep him as close as possible. We couldn’t get a big lead in terms of getting that squeeze down. It’s something that goes through any offensive coach’s mind but we have to do a better job with men in scoring position in that situation.”
TCU (27-14) travels to Florida State for a three-game series this weekend.
Injury update
Saarloos provided good news on the injury front as far as left-hander Austin Krob is concerned. Krob threw two scoreless innings in a victory at Oklahoma State on Sunday. Saarloos said Krob felt good the day after Monday and will be an option out of the bullpen for the Florida State series.
“Do we use him once on Friday and once on Sunday? We’ll see how he feels and what’s best in terms of what we need to do to win a game,” Saarloos said.
Stretching Krob out to become a starting option remains in the discussion phase. With only three weeks left in the regular season, it’ll be difficult to build his pitch count and endurance up to the point where it needs to be in a starting role.
For now, it feels like TCU will use Krob as a weapon out of the bullpen.
“For me, the three guys throwing right now have given us chances to win in Austin’s absence,” Saarloos said.
The starting rotation for Florida State is expected to be Riley Cornelio on Friday; Marcelo Perez on Saturday; and Brett Walker on Sunday.
In other injury news, catcher Michael Petrie (wrist) returned to game action for the first time since the season opener on Tuesday. Saarloos said Petrie’s catching ability is “way ahead” of the hitting part, which will likely determine Petrie’s playing time down the stretch.
This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 10:45 PM.
