McKenzie Homers Twice in Baylor Baseball's Game Two Loss at No. 10 Texas

AUSTIN, Texas – Baylor baseball (20-19, 4-10) dropped the second game of the series to No. 10 Texas (29-13, 8-6) by a final of 13-4 Saturday afternoon at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin.

Jared McKenzie became the first Bear to hit two home runs in the same game in 2022, but BU was unable to slow the UT offense as the Longhorns clinched the series with a 16-hit performance.

Baylor scored the game’s first two runs in the top of the second inning, as three-straight singles by Kyle Nevin, Casen Neumann and Chase Wehsener scored a run. Jacob Schoenvogel also picked up an RBI with a groundout to give the Bears a quick 2-0 lead.
 

Baylor Athletics

Texas would respond with a sacrifice fly in the bottom half, but McKenzie extended the Bears’ advantage in the top of the third with the first of his two solo shots on the afternoon. Another UT sacrifice fly made it 3-2 after three complete innings.

In the fourth, five-straight Longhorn hits resulted in four runs as Texas took the lead, 6-3. Two more scored in the fifth before McKenzie blasted his seventh homer of the year in the top of the sixth to cut it to 8-4. That’s all Baylor would get, as UT scored twice more in the bottom half and added three more in the seventh to go ahead by nine.

Blake Helton made his first appearance on the bump in over two months and worked the final 1.1 innings without allowing a run. He also picked up a strikeout in the outing.

NOTES
• Baylor extended its streak to 18 games in a row with at least one extra-base hit.

• BU has tallied two or more XBH in seven of its last eight games.

• Jared McKenzie became the first Bear to hit two home runs in the same game this season.

• McKenzie collected his third multi-HR game of his career.

• Kyle Nevin extended his on-base streak to 19 games and his hitting streak to eight games with his 12th multi-hit game of the season.

• Blake Helton made his first appearance on the mound since Feb. 19, and worked a scorless 1.1 innings.

STAT OF THE GAME

2 – Jared McKenzie hit two home runs, his third multi-HR outing of his career and the first by a Bear this season.

TOP QUOTES

Head coach Steve Rodriguez

On today’s game…

Baylor Athletics

“We’ve obviously been dinged up pretty good on the mound. The way we’re looking at it right now is these guys need to continue to get better and the way they’re going to do that is by going out and getting experience in situations like this. Use this as motivation as to why we need to get better, get stronger, have the ability to throw strike one and from an offensive standpoint it’s kind of the same thing. We need to continue to have better at-bats in offensive situations. The younger guys need to get this experience and hopefully they can continue to get better.”

On Blake Helton’s return…

“After suffering from the issues he’s been battling, him being able to get back on the mound was a great boost for everybody. To have him go back out there, a guy who’s been through it, was really fun to watch him pitch. Happy to get him out there and start to get the rust off.”

Sophomore OF Jared McKenzie

On hitting two home runs off UT’s Tristan Stevens…

“My first at-bat I was chasing, which has kind of been my issue all year long. I’ve been swinging at pitches out of the zone and have been getting too antsy. But, I got a first-pitch fastball and was able to hit it [out of the park]. Then, in my last AB off of him, he got me 2-2, came in on me with a couple pitches and I figured he was gonna come with something soft. He threw a cutter in, I got my hands to it and was able to hit it out.”

WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor (20-19, 4-10) will try to salvage the series against No. 10 Texas (29-13, 8-6) in Sunday’s finale, with first pitch set for 1 p.m. CT.