Texas Tech baseball: Red Raiders get the season started with a win

Friday in Lubbock, the Texas Tech baseball team beat Houston Baptist 5-1 to get the 2020 season started on the right foot.

A week ago, if we had been told that Micah Dallas and Clayton Beeter had combined for a dominant nine innings on the mound in the Texas Tech baseball team’s season-opener, we would not have thought twice about it.  But the way that unfolded on Friday was what was unexpected.

Last year’s freshman All-American reliever, Clayton Beeter made his first career start as a collegiate in the Red Raiders’ 5-1 win over Houston Baptist at Rip Griffin Park and was fantastic.  Tossing six innings of two-hit baseball while giving up just a lone run, the redshirt sophomore picked up the win after going 0-3 with a 3.48 ERA out of the bullpen in 2019.

Meanwhile, Dallas came out of the pen to pick up a three-inning save.  Striking out five Huskies, the only base runner he allowed was via a hit-by-pitch.

Though the order of the pitching appearances might not have been as we expected prior to Thursday’s Tim Tadlock press conference, the result was just what we envisioned.  Entering this year, most believe that the pitching staff would be the strength of the team and we saw nothing in game-one to change our minds.

At the plate, Tech took a while to get going on an afternoon that saw the temperature fail to crack 35 degrees with a wind chill ten degrees lower.  That’s never an ideal set of conditions in which to face a pitcher as good as HBU’s Kyle Gruller.

A third-team All-Southland Conference selection in 2019, the righty was tough to solve in the early going.  In fact, through four innings, he had struck out eight hitters while allowing only one hit.

But in the 5th, Tech plated all five of its runs.  In fact, in that inning, the Red Raiders were able to bat around.

That frame saw the home team pick up three hits and benefit from a trio of HBU errors.  The catalyst was a double by left fielder Dillon Carter to put runners at second and third with no outs.  After that, Max Marusak struck out before shortstop Cal Conley drove home a run on a fielder’s choice.  Then, singles by Brian Klein and Jace Jung proceeded a throwing error that allowed Braxton Fulford to score from third to cap the scoring.

Big innings are nothing new at Rip Griffin Park and though many of the faces are new this year, another avalanche of offense buried a Red Raider opponent in Lubbock.  But outside of that, Tech got just four hits, only three after the fifth.

Still, this was a much more pleasant start to the season than what we saw in 2019.  That day, Tadlock’s team fell to Oregon 9-4 for just the third home-opening loss in the last 34 years.

So let’s go inside this win and see how Tech pulled it out.  And we will begin with a closer look at the start of Clayton Beeter.