Texas Tech baseball: 3 reasons Red Raiders were able to sweep regional

Tadlock’s tough decisions all panned out

You’ll have to forgive Texas Tech baseball fans if we all simply assume that every decision Tim Tadlock makes in June is destined to work out.  After all, we’ve seen him make the right call year after year in the NCAA Tournament with almost no instances to point to as reminders of when he made the wrong call.  That’s why his team just swept through the regional round for the third consecutive tournament and will be playing for its third-straight trip to the College World Series this coming weekend.

In the 2021 Lubbock regional, Tadlock again made some tough decisions that worked out spectacularly.  And it began with his game-one starter.

With a fully rested rotation at his disposal, Tadlock gambled by choosing to start his fourth-best rotation piece, Chase Hampton, against Army to open the weekend.  While some may shrug and say “well, it was just Army”, the reality is that every game in a regional is crucial and that upsets occur as often in the baseball tournament as they do in the basketball tournament.  What’s more, losing game one of the regional is a recipe for disaster as it forces a team to have to win four games in a row to advance.

Thus, when Tadlock turned to a freshman with just five starts under his belt to open the weekend, more than a few eyebrows were raised.  But of course, the move paid off.

Montgomery was more than solid against the Black Knights going six full innings while allowing only two runs on seven hits and striking out seven while walking just one.  Picking up the victory to move to 4-0 on the year, Hampton not only set his team up to open the regional with a crucial victory, but he also did not place too much of a burden on his bullpen, another key to surviving a 4-team regional.

Another move that paid off for Tadlock was to bring Micah Dallas out of the pen.  The sophomore righty had made 10 starts this year with all of them coming out of necessity after an injury to starter Brandon Birdsell forced Dallas into the rotation in mid-season.

Most would have kept Dallas in the rotation just in case a fourth starter was needed on the weekend.  After all, he’s been a reliable member of the rotation as he had given up more than three runs in just one of his five most recent starts heading into the weekend.

But Tadlock knows that regionals are all about bullpens and he moved his most versatile arm back to the pen to solidify a component of his squad that has been suspect at times this season.  That decision proved to be prudent as Dallas appeared in two games picking up the save against Amry by working a scoreless 9th and working the final two innings to close out UCLA on Sunday.

It will be interesting to see what Tadlock does with both Hampton and Dallas this weekend in the Super-Regional, which is a traditional three-game series.  But what we do know is that he is likely going to make the right decisions because that’s what he does in June.