Gerry Glasco and the top-ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders softball team have the opportunity to continue building momentum and rolling right over the rest of the conference as they hit the road to face off against the Utah Utes in Salt Lake City this weekend.
Quite frankly, Texas Tech’s frightening offense and that incredibly dominant pitching staff are in position to absolutely bulldoze a Utah team that is solid but will almost certainly be outmatched in just about every way when facing the Red Raiders.
The Utes are at a pretty significant disadvantage here. They’ll be trying to play spoiler, but they’re meeting up with a team that has 12 more wins than them (and Utah has really had issues playing against Big 12 teams this season).
Here’s what Utah’s pitching staff will face when the Texas Tech softball team arrive in Salt Lake City for a Big 12 series
The Utah pitching staff isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination. Right now they have a 2.67 ERA and have managed to deal out 174 strikeouts this season. But Texas Tech’s batters are operating at a completely different level right now.
The Red Raiders have 82 home runs this season and have managed to put together a .404 batting average. So far this season, Texas Tech is averaging over 10 runs per game. This team is dangerous from top to bottom in the lineup.
Texas Tech’s pitching staff is poised to absolutely shutdown the Utes when Utah is at the plate this weekend
Beyond just what Texas Tech does at the plate in games, the Red Raiders can take over a game just based on the strength of their pitching staff. As a team, Texas Tech has a 1.70 ERA with 274 strikeouts across 226 innings.
Right now, as a whole, opposing batters have just a .170 batting average when facing Texas Tech.
NiJaree Canadry has managed to put together a 1.29 ERA with 133 strikeouts while Kaitlyn Terry has a 1.73 ERA and 92 strikeouts. Then there’s Samantha Lincoln rounding things out with a 2.38 ERA and 42 strikeouts.
Utah’s .309 team batting average is solid, but it doesn’t look like the Utes will have an easy time when trying to get hits against Texas Tech.