Five Alumni Game thoughts as Texas baseball prepares for season opener

Despite Texas missing out on the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year in 2013 and finishing last in the Big 12 standings last season, Augie Garrido’s 2014 bunch has shown promise. The Longhorns have since signed the nation’s second-best recruiting class, according to Baseball America, and checked in at No. 20 in the Collegiate Baseball preseason poll.

This week, they came in at No. 4 in the Big 12 preseason poll, receiving one out of 10 first-place votes. Here are five thoughts from last weekend’s Alumni Game as Texas prepares for its season opener against Cal next Friday.

1) Andy McGuire leading candidate to be impact freshman

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Freshman third baseman Andy McGuire made a great first impression on the approximately 2,000 fans seeing him play for the first time, going 1-for-2 with an RBI and two great stops in the hot corner. Texas scored twice in the sixth inning to take a 3-1, with McGuire driving in the second run with a fielder’s choice. But his best moment in Saturday’s 8-3 win over the Alumni came on back-to-back defensive plays at third base, the first coming on a backhand near the left-field foul line well behind the bag before a laser of a throw to first and a diving stop and throw to get the next batter out.

“I have pretty high hopes for McGuire,” said Texas head baseball coach Augie Garrido. “I thought McGuire did awfully well for being in this arena, it didn’t seem to bother him at all. He just played, made a couple plays defensively and took quality at-bats.”

2) Tres Barrera another impressive freshman position player

There were nine players who played in the big leagues last year that played in the Alumni Game but none of them had as many hits as the three hits Tres Barrera had last Saturday. The freshman catcher/first baseman went 3-for-4 with a game-high two runs and an RBI. He is a leading candidate to be an everyday player this year.

The night before the game, Barrera tweeted:

Not gonna lie, I’m pretty excited to take the field against guys I grew up watching on tv as a youngster tomorrow.

— Felipe Barrera III (@TresBarrera13) February 1, 2014

 

Gonna be hard to try and not ask for any autographs. Lol Gonna be a great time. #hookem

— Felipe Barrera III (@TresBarrera13) February 1, 2014

 

“It was a great feeling,” Barrera said after the game. “I had been watching those guys growing up on TV and wanted to be just like them and I got to take the field with them. That was very special to me.”

3) Texas offense took a while to get going

The Longhorns were held scoreless for the first five innings, for two main reasons: the first three pitchers they faced were Brandon Workman, who helped the Boston Red Sox win the World Series last year, All-Star closer Huston Street and Mariners reliever Chance Ruffin. Sam Stafford also shut them out in the fourth before Barrera led the fifth inning off with a single and scored on a single up the middle by Jeremy Montalbano, tying the game at 1.

Texas took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning, which it didn’t need to play but did anyway, which proved to be a good idea since the Longhorns plated four more in that frame.

“After they got their legs underneath them and got the jitters out, they had some pretty decent rallies,” Garrido said. “They played pretty steady and extended the innings and extending the rallies, separating balls they could hit without losing their aggressiveness to hit it.”

4) Nathan Thornhill started slow as well but also turned it around

Like the Longhorns lineup, Nathan Thornhill needed a little while before getting into a rhythm. He fell behind 2-0 on the first two hitters he faced, giving up a double to Colorado Rockies outfielder Drew Stubbs to start the game and a single to Brandon Loy. Stubbs scored later in the inning to give the Alumni squad a 1-0 lead.

But Thornhill settled into a groove after those initial hiccups, following them by throwing four scoreless innings.

“That’s somewhat normal with just having the first time facing other hitters than our own guys. That happens when you press a little bit instead of just trusting your stuff and going with what we’re taught here,” Thornhill said. “Stubbs, I don’t know how long he’s been in the bigs but I gave him a 2-0 fastball and he did what he was supposed to… After those two guys, though, I kind of settled down.”

5) Young pitchers showing promise

Morgan Cooper followed Thornhill by throwing a scoreless sixth, retiring the side and striking out one while fellow freshman Blake Goins did the same in the eighth. Texas returns all three of its weekend starting pitchers in Thornhill, junior Parker French and junior Dillon Peters, along with several key relievers from a year ago. But the Longhorns showed last weekend that they have some fresh, young, potentially productive arms waiting in the wings, including Cooper and Goins.

“All in all, there was a lot more good than negative and the negative things we see are things we’ll work on,” Garrido said. “We’ve got a few more weeks before we play a game in Division I. It’s going to take a good solid three to four weeks for this thing to separate the guys that respond to the adversities in a very positive way and grow from the failures.”

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[/s2If] Question for the fans:What was your favorite part of the Alumni game? Sound off below.

#HookEm