Three takeaways from No. 7 TCU baseball’s series opener against No. 1 UCLA
TCU entered Friday’s game against No. 1 UCLA looking to avoid a three-game losing streak after dropping back-to-back games against unranked opponents.
The trend continued with their 10-2 loss to UCLA.
TCU head coach Kirk Saarloos said — during the broadcast on FS1 — his team would need its veterans to step up to try and help the Horned Frogs get back on track.
“We haven’t really got off to the start we wanted to. We started the first two days well, and haven’t played good since. So we’re going to need these veteran guys to kind of weather the storm a little bit here,” said Saarloos.
Top Horned Frogs out of commission
The Horned Frogs suffered a major blow when ace Tommy LaPour was sidelined for this series with elbow soreness and will be re-evaluated in a couple of weeks.
LaPour was the preseason Big 12 Pitcher of the Year and got his season off to a strong start against Vanderbilt, giving up two runs off fives hits in five innings of work with five strikeouts.
TCU was also missing the reigning Big 12 Pitcher of the Week, Noah Franco, who was out of the game against the Bruins with an oblique injury.
Without LaPour, TCU turned to Mason Brassfield as their Friday night starter, how did he fare?
Bruins bounce Brassfield in second inning
Brassfield did not give up any runs in the first inning: He forced a pop-up to end the inning after allowing back-to-back singles.
The next inning Brassfield would not be so lucky, after allowing a lead off double to Aiden Aguayo, Will Gasparino came up one batter later and hit his own double that scored the Bruins’ first run of the game.
The Bruins inning continued with a single and a hit by pitch that loaded the bases for Roch Cholowsky, the presumptive No. 1 pick in the upcoming MLB Draft, Cholowsky broke the inning open with a grand slam that put the Bruins up 5-0.
Brassfield allowed two more base runners before being pulled for Tyler Phenow.
Pitching has been a problem for the Horned Frogs in their last three games, with the team giving up a total of 33 runs.
Saarloos talked about the team’s struggles and injuries after a starting the season with back-to-back wins.
“We got to keep playing. I mean, we haven’t last couple outings, last couple games, we’ve gotten off to really poor starts with our starting pitching, again tonight obviously, they end up getting seven in the first three [innings],but we got to keep playing. I mean, nobody’s going to feel sorry for injuries or stuff like that. We got to be able to overcome those things,” said Saarloos.
Horned Frogs hitters stymied
UCLA pitcher Logan Reddemann had a career day against TCU. He struck out ten Horned Frogs and gave up only one run off five hits in five innings of work.
TCU’s first run of the game came off a Chase Brunson home run. TCU went hitless with runners in scoring position and went 2 for 16 with runners on base as the offense failed to get into rhythm against the nation’s top team.
TCU will continue the three-game series at UCLA at 4 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. The Horned Frogs will then stay in Los Angeles and play their next game against Loyola Marymount at 3 p.m. Monday at Page Stadium.
This story was originally published February 20, 2026 at 10:33 PM.
