Folks, Tim Tadlock officially has a brand new pitching coach. After a truly rough couple of seasons on the mound for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, a change has been made to hopefully address some rather significant pitching issues that have been plaguing TTU in recent seasons.
Steve Foster will be leading Texas Tech’s pitching staff as we move forward and we’re going to see him tackle a pretty significant issue for Tadlock’s Texas Tech Red Raiders baseball team.
Specifically, there are a few areas in which I think we’ll see Foster really get things shaped up a bit. Here are three stats I think we’ll see some noteworthy improvement upon thanks to the addition of Foster for the Red Raiders.
No. 3: Power hitters really enjoyed facing Texas Tech in 2025 as they mashed 74 home runs off the Red Raiders
I’m not saying that I expect ZERO home runs to be hit off Texas Tech’s pitching staff in 2026. That’s absurd. What I am saying is that the 74 home runs that were hit off the Red Raiders this past season will probably be a bigger number than what we see happen next season with Foster helping improve Texas Tech’s pitching.
Granted, that’s probably not hard to improve upon. I mean, we’re talking about a team that really stood out in an unfortunate way here as the Red Raiders gave up 1.4 home runs per game. When you look at the raw numbers without breaking out the calculator, Texas Tech ranks in at No. 12 here.
But when you do that home run per game average? Well, the Red Raiders are at the bottom of the 14 team Big 12 baseball scene.
Again, teams will still hit home runs off the Red Raiders, but it shouldn’t be THIS bad next season.
No. 2: It’s still so crazy to me that Texas Tech recorded ZERO shutouts in 2025
Look, I’m not going to say that shutting out an opponent is an easy feat. Especially not in a conference where there are quite a few competitive college baseball programs like in the Big 12. But for Texas Tech to be one of just two teams in the conference to not record a single shutout win over an opponent speaks volumes about just how much the pitching struggled this season.
There were a DOZEN other Big 12 teams that had at least one shutout win this year. Heck, Texas Tech was similarly unimpressive in 2024 and the Red Raiders were able to get a shutout win during that season. And that wasn’t that long ago.
So yeah, I expect this to be at least somewhat improved upon with Foster at the helm. I think we’re going to see at least one shutout win from the Red Raiders and Foster’s pitching staff in 2026. We may not see much more than one shutout win, but I think we’ll see at least one.
No. 1: That 6.49 ERA gives Foster and the Red Raiders something to work on
Okay, yeah, that ERA is bad. Really, really bad. The 6.19 ERA for the Texas Tech pitching staff in 2024 was bad. But it got worse. And the Red Raiders lost a lot of games because of just how bad this team was at pitching.
With that 6.49 ERA, the Texas Tech Red Raiders rank as the No. 13 pitching staff out of 14 teams in the Big 12.
That, folks, is not impressive.
There shouldn’t be an expectation that Foster will immediately and drastically change that in just one season, but there should be an expectation of the team ERA sitting below 5.00. If that happens, then the Red Raiders are effectively in the top half of the conference. And that means winning in conference games is a lot more plausible.
Again, it shouldn’t be a drastic change here. Just a change enough in the right direction to get the Red Raiders competitive. Doesn’t have to be a total fix. Just enough of a fix. And I think that’s possible here.