Aaron Lindberg/Journal-World PhotoAnother day, another career pitching performance against Kansas University’s struggling baseball team.
A day after Texas’ Albert Montes struck out a career-best 13 Jayhawks, UT’s Ryan France struck out a career-best nine KU players in his first complete game, a 6-3 victory over Kansas on Sunday at Hoglund Ballpark.
Texas 6 – Kansas 3
EQuintanilla; Brooks; Stucky, 4. DPTexas 2; Kansas 1. LOBTexas 9; Kansas 5. 2BQuintanilla, 2; King; Rosenberg; Brooks; Anderson; Nelson. SBQuintanilla; King, 2; Rosenberg; Gremminger. SHQuintanilla; Hubele; King.
WPWright. BKFrance, Wright. T2:17. A330. |
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“That was by far Ryan France’s most complete performance in a Longhorn uniform,” UT coach Augie Garrido said of the right-hander from Austin, Texas.
Kansas, which lost all three games to the Longhorns and has dropped seven straight to fall to 14-18 overall and 2-13 in the Big 12, played without starters Doug Dreher and Ryan Klocksien.
Dreher is recovering from a severely sprained wrist he suffered last week, while Klocksien is sick.
“Right now he’s one of the best hitters in the lineup,” KU coach Bobby Randall said of Klocksien. “That hurt to have him out of there. But that’s the way the game goes sometimes.”
In Klocksien’s absence, freshman Dan Stucky played third base. He committed four errors, two of which eventually led to runs for Texas.
“Danny hasn’t played a lot of third base in his defense,” Randall said. “He’s just a freshman, and against the University of Texas that’s a tough thing, and they went after him right away. He’ll be a fine player; today was just a rugged day for him.”
The Longhorns, 24-12 and 12-3 and winners of nine straight, led 3-0 after an inning and 5-1 after two.
KU scored a single run in the second and two runs in the eighth, but a Jayhawk’s miscue kept Kansas from coming any closer than the final margin.
With one out in the eighth, John Nelson hit a bloop double that fell between right fielder Matt Rosenberg and second baseman Tim Moss. Jason Appuhn followed with a bunt single down the third-base line. Jesse Gremminger hit a grounder to third, but third baseman Ryan Brooks booted it and shortstop Omar Quintanilla’s throw to the plate was wild.
Kevin Wheeler followed with a single, but Rosenberg made an accurate throw to third base where Gremminger slid past the bag and was tagged out.
With Matt Tribble batting, France was called for a balk which would have scored Gremminger from third. Instead, France got Tribble to fly out to end the inning.
“Coach stuck with me when I did get in trouble,” said France, who struck out the side in the ninth.
