Horns clinch series against Stanford in dramatic fashion

It doesn’t matter to Texas that the team it got the better off this weekend happened to be the same Stanford squad that swept the Longhorns in Palo Alto each of the last two years. But they were encouraged with their victories Friday and Saturday, clinching their first series win over the Cardinal since 2010.

( See Also Baseball vs Stanford (PHOTO GALLERY))

Parker French allowed one run on four hits, striking out a career-high[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] eight and walking only one as Texas cruised to a 9-3 win Friday night. Mark Payton went 4-for-5 with three RBIs to continue his early-season tear. His two-run triple sparked a five-run second-inning rally that gave French and the Longhorns pitching staff all the run support they would need.

All five runs in that second inning came with two outs – after Brooks Marlow hustled down the line to beat out a throw by Stanford catcher Brant Whiting following a called third strike. And Payton’s was the only of Texas’ five hits in the frame that didn’t come with two strikes.

“It’s always about some little thing like that. This game is unbelievable that way,” head coach Augie Garrido said of Marlow’s inning-extending play. “The second inning was the best rally of the season because they sustained it longer and more of it was with two outs and more of it was with two strikes. It was all with two outs, that’s what made it the best.”

But that was as exciting as it got Friday night. Saturday afternoon, on the other hand, was a different story.

The Longhorns pounced on the Cardinal with two runs in the first inning. Dillon Peters took a shutout into the seventh inning but a two-run single by Zach Hoffpauir tied the game at 2. Mark Payton’s RBI single in the home half of the seventh and an RBI double by Stanford’s Alex Blandino in the eight once again left the game tied, this time at 3.

That set up a dramatic ninth inning. Stanford got its leadoff man on but Nathan Thornhill, whose consecutive scoreless inning streak was snapped at 22 2/3 in the previous frame, got the next Cardinal hitter to ground into a double and fanned the next one to end the inning and preserve the tie.

In the bottom of the ninth, Ben Johnson, Marlow and Payton all drew walks to load the bases for C.J Hinojosa. But Hinojosa never got the chance to deliver a game-winning hit as Collin Shaw, who reached on a fielder’s choice earlier inning, raced home to score the series-clinching run and give the Longhorns a 4-3 victory Saturday.

“From our point of view, it was a matter of maturity and a matter of doing a lot of hard work in the fall,” Garrido said. “I really believe the little things the players did comes from the fact that they did work hard, and they believe they deserve to win.”

 

Payton stays white-hot

Mark Payton doesn’t like to talk about himself. But if he keeps hitting like this, his teammates and coaches are going to run out of things to say about him.

“He’s really good at hitting a baseball,” Texas ace Parker French said. “Is there anything else we can say?”

“Whatever he wants,” Augie Garrido said when asked what he’s feeding Payton.

These are not typos: Payton is batting .613 (19-for-31) through eight games this season, with a .676 on-base percentage and a .935 slugging percentage. He went 8-for-10 with five walks, four of them coming in his last six plate appearances, in this week’s three-game series against Stanford.

“You bring your kid to the ballpark so he can see Mark Payton, to teach him how to hit,” French continued. “He takes the same balanced swing every time. He stays on every baseball. He sees the ball so well. He’s just everything you want in a hitter and, as a pitcher, that’s not who you want to face.”

Payton, who reached base in 13 of his 15 plate appearances this week, has reached base in 44 straight games and extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a leadoff single in the fourth inning of Sunday’s loss. It was his only hit of the day, making it the first time all season he failed to register multiple hits in a game.

“He’s really playing the game at a very high and mature level right now,” Garrido said. “He just hitting the bal where it’s pitched. He’s ready to hit on every pitch but he lets the ones outside the zone go. And I think something he’s unknowingly doing is he’s passing it on to his teammates.”

Payton, who lost an undisclosed amount of weight over the offseason to ease the transition from right field to center field, also hit his third triple of the year this week. He’s got 17 career three-baggers, three shy of the school record.

When asked how he would approach facing Payton, French gave an honest answer: “Pray.”

 

Thornhill embraces closer role

Like Payton, Nathan Thornhill turned down a professional baseball contract to return for his senior year at Texas.

Yet, after allowing only one run over eight innings in a series-salvaging win over Cal last Sunday, Thornhill was relegated to the bullpen. This time, he was to assume the role of closer, one he had not held in his college career. It’s a transition several talented Longhorns pitchers have made, including Chance Ruffin and Austin Wood, who Thornhill called as soon as he found out.

“I never talked to Augie and [pitching coach] Skip [Johnson] about it until Wednesday,” Thornhill said. “But I had kind of been hinting at it in practice, telling them, ‘If we can’t find [a closer], I’m ready.’”

Thornhill finished both of Texas’ victories over Stanford this week, although he was yet to pick up his first career save. He tossed 1 2/3 scoreless innings during Friday’s 9-3 triumph, although it wasn’t in save situation, and followed that by allowing one run on three hits over two innings in Saturday’s 4-3 victory.

“We have to have a short relief pitcher to win,” said Garrido, who cited his belief that Thornhill is the best fielding pitcher on the team. “He also is probably more team-oriented than maybe any other player on the team. He’s definitely total team in his personality. It’s no joke. It’s a real feeling. He’s not trying to be that. He is that.”

Thornhill got the win in that contest, improving to 2-0 on the year. In three appearances, he’s posted a 0.77 ERA and has held opposing hitters to a .200 batting average.

“Do I want to be in there at the end of the game when it matters? Heck yeah,” Thornhill said. “I was a reliever my freshman year, but never a closer. I can see where it gets fun.”

 

Augie gets tossed in finale

A sloppily played finale featuring a combined 17 walks, five wild pitches, three errors, two hit batters, a passed ball and a balk kept Texas from sweeping Stanford this weekend

It was the balk that led to Augie Garrido watching most of the Longhorns’ 11-5 loss Sunday afternoon from the locker room.

After surrendering four runs in the second inning, Lukas Schiraldi’s day was done when he started the third inning by allowing a pair of singles. Left-hander Travis Duke took over on the mound and struck out the first batter he faced before hitting the second to load the bases.

Duke appeared to strike out Stanford’s Drew Jackson looking, but the pitch was negated when he was called for a balk. Instead of having the bases loaded with two out and facing a 4-0 deficit, the Cardinal had runners at second and third, along with a 5-0 advantage.

It wasn’t long after Duke was charged with a balk that Garrido charged out of the dugout to plead his case and first base umpire Tim Henderson ejected him.

“I want the players to know I’m going to fight for them,” Garrido explained. “You want to know what that was about? That was so they know the coaches are fighting for them. We want the players to fight for each other and we’re going to fight for them as well.”

Duke, who said he was warned for balking earlier in the inning, got out of the jam, not allowing another run in his 2 2/3 innings of work. But the damage was done and the Longhorns were unable to work out of the 5-0 hole they dug themselves into early in the game. Still, Garrido sent the message to his team he wanted to.

“That says a lot about his character and why he is the coach that he is,” Duke said. “Coach Garrido, he’s very even-keel most of the time, so him coming out and showing emotion and fighting for our team, that really lit a fire under me to go out and compete.”
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