Moonshots and Momentum: Baylor Sweeps Opening Week in Dominant Fashion

“There’s no way he’ll do it again, right?”

That was probably what was going through everyone’s mind at Baylor Ballpark on Friday night, whether on the field, in the dugout or sitting in the stands, when redshirt senior first baseman Tyce Armstrong stepped into the batter’s box in the seventh inning of the Bears’ Opening Day matchup against New Mexico State.

Sure enough, with the count at 2–0, Armstrong pounced on a hanging fastball and launched it high over the left-field wall to the biggest crowd roar inside Baylor Ballpark in quite some time. As soon as Armstrong’s bat cracked at the sound of contact, everyone in the stadium knew it was gone and understood they had witnessed history, but what exactly that history was was to be determined.

As it turns out, the UTA transfer became the second player in college baseball history, joining Louisville’s Jim LaFountain (1976), to hit three grand slams in a single game; Armstrong also broke Baylor’s single-game RBI record (12) in the process. 

Armstrong’s three majestic moonshots will go down in college baseball lore for the rest of history, and his once-in-a-lifetime performance helped him earn a handful of national honors: Big 12 Newcomer of the Week, Perfect Game’s National Player of the Week, NCBWA Co-National Hitter of the Week and Baseball America’s 1B of the Week.

“I’m speechless,” Armstrong said after his special Baylor debut. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever been a part of. Unreal. It’s a great feeling for sure. I’m hoping to keep it going, but this team is great. It’s the best team I’ve ever been a part of.”

Head coach Mitch Thompson added, “When he hit the second one, we’re in the dugout, going back-to-back innings, two grannies, has that ever happened at Baylor before? I said, ‘Well, Max [Calderone: Baylor Director of Athletics Communications] is feverishly going through his notes to find out,’ and then he hit a third. I think it’s only happened one time in the history of college baseball. How cool is that? It was fun to see.”

While Armstrong’s historical performance was obviously the talk of the town, there were many other encouraging signs sprinkled across Baylor’s first week of the season that included a sweep of New Mexico State, where the Bears out-scored the Aggies, 27-to-7, and a 14-4 win over Texas State in a Tuesday tussle.

Through Thompson’s first three years at the helm of the Baylor program, it felt like time and time again that the Bears couldn’t get out of their own way. A throwing error here, a mistake on the basepaths there or any run-of-the-mill miscue — you name it, it probably happened.

For the most part, however, that wasn’t the case throughout Baylor’s first four games of the young 2026 season. The Bears played a clean brand of baseball (only two errors) that bodes well for the rest of the year, if they can maintain this level of play. There’s a big difference between an opponent beating you straight-up and beating yourselves, and it’s felt like Baylor has seen much more of the latter than the former in recent years.

On the mound, pitching coach Sean Snedeker worked miracles in his first season in Waco, improving Baylor’s team ERA (4.52), WHIP (1.33) and K:BB (2.57) from the cellar of the Big 12 to top-30 nationally. Across the first week of the season, Snedeker’s impact is still obvious, as the Bears have a team ERA of 2.91, a team WHIP of 0.97, and have punched out 33 batters while issuing just eight free passes.

Reliable veterans Lucas Davenport (4.2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 6 SO) and Ethan Calder (3.2 IP, H, 0 ER, 5 SO) both gave the Bears good starts, but it was great to see a bunch of the new faces perform well, as Zack Wallace (So., Rowan-Gloucester), Charlie Atkinson (Jr.m, DBU), Luke DeVasher (Jr., Tyler Junior College), Cayden Baker (RFr.) and Luke McLeod (Fr.) all tossed scoreless outings, combining for nine strikeouts and zero walks across nine frames.

“We’ll be tough to beat if our guys won’t be walking people, and we make plays on defense,” Thompson succinctly summed it up, following the series win over New Mexico State last Sunday.

Lineup-wise, first and foremost, I was really encouraged by the play of Armstrong, as well as the middle infield duo of redshirt junior Travis Sanders and sophomore Pearson Reibock. Not that I had any concern about them going into the year, but it was great to see them start hot. That trio at the top of the batting order has combined to go 18-for-43 with six extra-base hits, plus Armstrong is tied with Kansas State’s Dee Kennedy for the most RBIs (15) in the country.

“It’s so much fun hitting between those two guys,” Riebock told the Baylor Sports Media Network after Tuesday’s victory over Texas State. “It’s not every day you can hit between two guys that talented. Travis is a freak athlete. We saw how much power Tyce has.”

The next three players to discuss are the likely X-factors: fifth-year senior center fielder Ty Johnson, junior catcher JJ Kennett and sophomore third baseman Cade Dodson. We don’t have as big a sample size for these three, as they’ve only combined for 26 at-bats, but the ceiling of this lineup probably goes with how much they can deliver.

Next up are the corner outfielders: true freshman Brady Janusek (6-foot-4, 204 pounds) and redshirt freshman Hunter Snow (6-foot-3, 201 pounds). First off, these two guys sure do look the part and are significant upgrades defensively, as both have the tools to grow into elite athletes. 

At the plate, however, Snow hasn’t had as much early success hitting-wise (2-for-9) just yet, but he appears to be competitive at-bat and has drawn five free passes so far and boasts a .500 on-base percentage. 

Janusek, meanwhile, looks to have All-Big 12 Freshman potential. Through four games, he’s already clubbed a 410-foot home run and a triple that was inches from going over the wall in the deepest part of the park. He’s 4-for-13 (.308), has drawn six walks for a .526 on-base percentage and has a .682 slugging percentage.

The final piece in the freshman outfield puzzle seems to be Cy-Fair product, Bo Caraway. The Houston native was set to get playing time this year regardless; he has game-changing speed and is considered the team’s fastest player. What I didn’t expect so quickly was five extremely mature at-bats in his first collegiate start, as he went 3-for-5 with a clutch two-out, two-run single that reclaimed the lead for the Bears in the fifth inning on Tuesday night. 

Probably my favorite highlight of Caraway’s debut was when he was in a hole 0-2 after failing to lay down a bunt. He rebounded to force a 3-2 count and then sliced a potential double over third base, but the Texas State left-fielder just made a really good play and caught the line drive. While he didn’t get the base knock, it showed Caraway’s savvy at the plate, despite it being his first collegiate start.

“This is part of the deal, we gotta throw them out there and let them grow and let them learn,” Thompson said of his true freshmen outfielders on Tuesday night. “The only way we’re ever gonna learn what they can and can’t do is to let them do it. We trust them. They’ve been good players for us all fall and into the spring. They played well tonight.”

Overall, the lineup is doing it a bit differently than in years past, when a batting order full of contact hitters had to keep stringing hits together to plate runs. That hasn’t been the case through four games this season, as the Bears are drawing an abundance of free passes (45) and making opponents pay with extra-base hits (15: 6 doubles, 5 home runs, 4 triples), which is even more impressive considering the wind was blowing in on Saturday and Sunday. 

Baylor’s hitting .331 as a team with a .509 on-base percentage and a .570 slugging percentage. I can’t confirm this, but I would imagine 1.079 is the highest OPS the Bears have had under Thompson, though it’s a very limited sample size. So, while the positive signs are there, it’s tough to have any massive takeaways until Baylor starts facing some better competition. I want to think that as the young guys get more at-bats, this lineup will be better in May than it was in mid-February, but that’s to be determined.

The only thing that mildly concerns me is senior right-handed pitcher Cade Hansen’s performance in the series finale against New Mexico State, where he gave up three earned runs and five hits across four innings; he struck out two and didn’t issue a free pass, but his command was a bit iffy.

Hansen was the ace on Wisconsin-Whitewater’s National-Championship squad last season and posted insane numbers: 12-1 record, 2.68 ERA, 1.04 WHIP and .233 batting average against; he tossed over 84 innings with an impressive 84:13 strikeout-to-walk ratio. 

The New Braunfels native had one of the better falls of any pitcher on the roster, so there’s an expectation that he can make a smooth transition to the Power Four level and be an impact arm for the Bears in the weekend rotation this season. 

Hopefully, we can write off Hansen’s uneven first outing in the Green and Gold as a fluke. Still, after Baylor got burned last season by left-hander Bryson Bales — the Hendrix transfer who went from being hyped as the early Saturday starter to virtually unusable by Big 12 play — I’m just a tad bit on edge, likely because Baylor’s had so many rotation issues in recent memory.

Overall, though, the early returns are positive, but we’ll truly find out what this team is made of in the coming days as the Bears head to Round Rock this weekend to face No. 11 Oregon State, Purdue and No. 20 Southern Miss. Then, the following weekend, Baylor will travel to Houston to compete in the Bruce Bolt Classic against Ole Miss, No. 3 Texas and UTSA.

If Thompson’s squad can keep its head above water and play competitive baseball across this upcoming two-week stretch, while potentially knocking off a blue blood or two in the process, then I’ll be really encouraged the rest of the way and like the Bears’ chances to push for an NCAA Tournament bid.