Baseball Slips at Sam Houston, 11-10

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Baylor baseball (9-7) couldn’t hold off a late comeback from Sam Houston (11-5) Tuesday night in Huntsville, as the Bearkats topped the Bears, 11-10.

SHSU’s Anthony MacKenzie delivered a walk-off, two-run double with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to complete the come-from-behind effort and steal the win from BU.

Baylor had taken advantage of the Bearkats’ five errors and jumped out to early leads of 2-0, 4-2 and 9-2 through the first four innings, but SHSU roared back with six unanswered runs to pull within one at 9-8 entering the ninth.

Nicolas Balsano produced an RBI via a sacrifice fly in the top of the ninth inning to give the Bears some insurance at 10-8, but it wasn’t enough as SHSU responded with a three-spot in the bottom half to snatch the win.

All nine batters in Baylor’s starting lineup either scored or drove in a run, as the Bears totaled 12 hits and committed no errors. However, BU left 15 men on base as it searched for a big hit that proved elusive on the night.

The pitching staff continues to show it has more questions than answers with the bullpen struggling to finish off a winnable game tonight.

The offense has rebounded decently from a slow start to the year, but outside of Tyler Thomas, the Bears need more dependable arms to win series heading into Big 12 play.

NOTES

• Baylor is now 46-16 in midweek contests under seventh-year head coach Steve Rodriguez, including a 3-1 mark in 2022.

• The Bears are 3-1 against teams from the state of Texas this season.

• BU still leads the all-time series 67-48 over Sam Houston and boasts a 6-5 record against the Bearkats under Rodriguez.

• All nine Bears in the starting lineup either scored or drove in a run.

• Harrison Caley collected a career-high three hits.

• Jack Pineda extended his on-base streak to 19 games, dating back to 2021, with his team-best seventh multi-hit game of the year.

• Tre Richardson notched his fifth multi-hit game of 2022.

• Kyle Nevin added to his team lead with his 13th and 14th RBIs of the season in his fifth multi-RBI outing.

• Chandler Freeman worked a career-long 2.1 innings and didn’t allow a run.

STAT OF THE GAME

9 – All nine Bears either scored a run or drove in a run.

TOP QUOTES

Head coach Steve Rodriguez
On the loss…
“[SHSU] continued to fight. We had some opportunities in the later innings where we just couldn’t get the hit to score more runs. We got them early and put a lot of pressure on them, then later on we just couldn’t get that hit to seal it.”

WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor (9-7) opens up Big 12 conference play against No. 21 TCU (12-4) with a three-game series in Waco, beginning Friday, March 18, at 6:30 p.m. CT at Baylor Ballpark.