Iowa v Texas Tech - Saturday, March 11th

[AuroraHawk]

About to get on the road to pick up the kid in IC and will be relegated to radio feed today. Time is tight so I’ll offer brief comments.

Brecht will need his A game today. Wind will be whipping. TT is patient at the plate. If he doean’t have control, the game could get out of hand quickly … again.

 

[Randy Marsh]

Brecht pitching well. 65 pitches through 4 innings and 5 or 6 Ks to 1 or 2 walks. 1-0 good guys after 4.

Two great defensive plays for the Hawks so far. First TT batter of the game hammered one to the LF corner. Iowas LF with a cannon to throw him out at 2nd. And in the 3rd, Tech thought Brody was sleeping and tried to steal home and was caught by a pube.

 

[AuroraHawk]

 

[AuroraHawk]

View embedded media

 

[AuroraHawk]

Brecht pitching well. 65 pitches through 4 innings and 5 or 6 Ks to 1 or 2 walks. 1-0 good guys after 4.

Two great defensive plays for the Hawks so far. First TT batter of the game hammered one to the LF corner. Iowas LF with a cannon to throw him out at 2nd. And in the 3rd, Tech thought Brody was sleeping and tried to steal home and was caught by a pube.

Really unfortunate way to fall behind 2-1.

 

[Franisdaman]

A steal of home when the Iowa catcher was not paying attention to the runner at 3rd and threw to the pitcher (Voelker) cost Brody the 2nd run to his line today.

Check it out here:





Brody Brecht today:

5 2/3 Innings Pitched
106 total pitches (4.61 pitches/batter faced)
62 strikes (58%)

23 batters faced
7 Strike outs
5 ground outs
3 fly out
3 Walks
2 Wild Pitches
0 Hit by Pitch
0 Balks

5 Hits
2 Runs
0 Errors by the team

 

[AuroraHawk]

Kind of feels like Iowa will need to hold TT to 2 runs and manufacture a couple of runs somehow.

With 2-3-4 coming up in T8, that may be Iowa’s best chance.

 

[Franisdaman]

BOOM!

 

[AuroraHawk]

Buzz kill.
Iowa’s pitchers continues to get hit hard when falling behind in count and walks continue to haunt.

 

[Randy Marsh]

Didn’t really expect to be let down by Simpson and Voelker since they’ve been so good this year, but it was bound to happen at some point.

 

[In the blood]

Voelker giving up bp

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

This is why Iowa can't have nice things.......

 

[AuroraHawk]

Didn’t really expect to be let down by Simpson and Voelker since they’ve been so good this year, but it was bound to happen at some point.

I listened to Heller's pre-game yesterday and he commented on Iowa pitchers "winning" 0-0 counts and 1-1 counts. In other words, don't make a habit of falling behind in counts. The difference in pitcher effectiveness when up 1-2 in a count versus down 2-1 in a count is significant.

Both Simpson and Voelker have been outstanding in pitching ahead. Simpson was awful on Friday and Voelker struggled yesterday.

Here's reality: Texas Tech's hitting lineup is outstanding. The top 7 in the lineup all can hit. Little room for error. And, outside of Brecht's performance (and even he allowed 1+ runners per inning) Iowa's pitching hasn't been up to the task. And, while I've felt better about Iowa's hitting lineup this year than the last two years, TT's pitchers have done a decent job limiting big hits in key situations.

After burning through Simpson on Friday and Voelker yesterday, I'm anticipating that Heller has Anthony in mind after Morgan today. Henderson, Gotilla and Llwelleyn are likely in the mix as well. Given TT's lineup, I'm not particularly confident that what remains of Iowa's pitchers are going to limit TT's scoring. Iowa's bats must show up today and win a slugfest. If Iowa can somehow get the lead going into the 8th, I feel pretty good about Christopherson's ability to limit damage.

Have to be candid . . . the last two days have really been a kick in the nuts.