First a weekend recap, sorted by best Big 12 performance down to worst, based solely on my opinion.

BAYLOR - 2 wins, 1 loss at Long Beach State
TEXAS A&M - 2 wins, 1 loss at Florida
NEBRASKA - 3 wins, 1 each over Notre Dame, Arizona and Minnesota
OKLAHOMA - 3 wins over UC-Riverside
KANSAS - 3 wins over Western Illinois
KANSAS STATE - 3 wins over Eastern Illinois
OKLAHOMA STATE - 2 wins, 1 loss vs. Cal State-Northridge
MISSOURI - 2 wins, 1 loss vs. Wisconsin-Milwaukee
TEXAS - 1 win, 2 losses at UNLV
tech - 2 wins, 1 loss vs. Campbell (who?)



Here's how things stand after a few weekends of play.


Kansas State ... 8-1 ... (.889)
Texas A&M ... 13-2 ... (.867)
Nebraska ... 8-2 ... (.800)
Oklahoma State ... 7-2 ... (.778)
Kansas ... 13-4 ... (.765)
Oklahoma ... 12-4 ... (.750)
Baylor ... 9-3 ... (.750)
tech ... 11-5 ... (.688)
Missouri ... 8-5 ... (.615)
Texas ... 10-8 ... (.556)


Next weekend in the Big 12 will see some pretty big series.

K-State hosts Xavier
Texas A&M at UTSA tourney
Nebraska hosts Alabama
Oklahoma State at Pepperdine
Kansas at Clemson
Oklahoma hosts Centenary
Baylor hosts a tourney
tech hosts UNC-Ashville
Missouri hosts Purdue
Texas hosts Long Beach State




The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. - Isaiah 40:8, NIV

I hope a return to friendly confines will do the trick for us. This 5 game stretch for us will be brutal.

Its Campbell University and their mascot is the Camel......Go Camels!

(according to their site)

Thanks for the posted info above.

sodium -

I don't think it will be as brutal as you think.

1. Texas OWNS Rice. Augie is so far into Wayne's head it isn't even funny.

2. LBSU will be tough, but you are at home.

3. Arizona State will be road weary and they aren't the ASU of old.

Despite the recent UT woes, I expect the Horns to go 4-1 (maybe 3-2...but I doubt it) in the upcoming 5 game stretch.





The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. - Isaiah 40:8, NIV

We'll see. Defense has been killing us, and it's a lot harder to play defensively on turf due to the speed at which grounders get to you. Texas usually has very solid defense and pitching, but not much pop... this year it seems we have the opposite. I hope you're right though.

Harder to play on turf? Not sure about that.

I never played on turf, but I'm just going off of what I've heard. It's what both Tim Moss and Omar Quintinilla told me at a party my junior year. I asked them whether it was difficult or not switching between turf and grass all the time, and they both said they liked that they got to practice on turf, because if you can play great defense on turf, you can play great defense on grass.

Interesting sodium...I have not heard that before but it does make sense. The grass increases the friction on the ball and can slow it down.

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Freedom is not, never was, and never will be free!

Remember how you felt on 9/11!

Moron, I've watched baseball for a lot of years and it's always appeared to me to be exponentially harder to field on turf than grass. The speed at which the ball bounces, the weird hops it can take, the fact that it can bounce like a wall ball, all combine to make fielding on turf an impossibility.

I remember watching one of the Texas-A&M games at the Disch last spring when a fairly routine grounder got past someone on the left side of our infield, and ended up bouncing all the way to the way. That just doesn't happen on grass.

1. Texas OWNS Rice. Augie is so far into Wayne's head it isn't even funny.

***end of quote***

That's funny...

So far t.u. has really suprised me this year. I thought they would at least have a .750 winning average.

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Freedom is not, never was, and never will be free!

Remember how you felt on 9/11!

Luke,

taking 2 out of 3 was pretty damn impressive.

Our pitching is getting it done.

quote:

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We'll see. Defense has been killing us, and it's a lot harder to play defensively on turf due to the speed at which grounders get to you. Texas usually has very solid defense and pitching, but not much pop... this year it seems we have the opposite. I hope you're right though.

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You're right that defense has never been a problem for Texas. Last year the pitching wasn't great until well into conference play though. There was so much inexperience on the staff, particularly among the starters. That isn't the case this year, and the pitching is still pretty bad so far, which I'm having trouble figuring out.

The hitting was good last year, and it's been excellent this year. The defense has been, well, terrible. I think that's probably what Augie was referring to yesterday when he said the things that are going wrong are things that can be easily fixed, and the things Texas is good at are things that are much more difficult to master.

Part of the problem, IMO has been the way they've moved everyone around. Brad Suttle started off at third, now he's playing short. Clay Van Hook was playing second, and now they've got Brett Lewis there. Nick Peoples was in right field, now he's at third. They move Jordan Danks from left field to right field whenever they want to let Carson Kainer play. Kyle Russell and Chance Wheeless (due to injury) have moved in and out of the lineup. Drew Stubbs is the only person on the field who has stayed put.

And the same is pretty much true of the pitching staff. Adrian Alaniz and Kyle McCulloch are the only guys who have played the same role from day 1. Holliday is still trying to find a third starter and a closer, so he's doing all kinds of (mostly stupid) things with the pitching staff.

I would imagine it's pretty difficult to establish an "everyday" lineup with so many new guys, so I'm really trying to be patient and remember that this is non-conference play, and the sole purpose of non-conference play is is to get your ducks in a row. It's just hard to watch an Augie Garrido team making so many mistakes. One thing you can almost always count on with Texas is that they don't beat themselves. But that hasn't been the case so far.

Playing on artificial turf is harder than grass... The ball tends to skid through the infield at much faster rate than on regular grass/dirt.

I don't think the whole turf/grass thing really matters yet. Texas lost their 2nd baseman, 3rd baseman, shortstop, and catcher. The 3rd baseman (David Maroul) and the catcher (Taylor Teagarden) were the best in the country at their positions. The other two (Seth Johnston and Robby Hudson) were among the best.

Considering that Texas has an entirely new crew of infielders this year and that they've only played 6 of their 18 games at home, none of them have much experience playing on turf. The postseason is when having played on turf all year will be a big advantage.

My point was that if we have looked so bad, particularly the infield, on grass... it might get really ugly when we move back to turf.

The reason I said that is because I could have sworn that a few years ago I saw a comparison of fielding percentages of turf vs. grass teams. The turf teams seemed to have the majority of the top spots. I could be wrong, hense the "not sure about that" comment. Plus, I have no time to look up those "facts".

moron- I wouldn't doubt that turf teams have better fielding %s but that doesn't mean it is easier. Fielding % means you make errors. On turf, the ball 1) doesn't take bad bounces and 2) gets to you so fast if you knock it down you usually have time to get the runner. The difficulty of turf is balls shooting past you that you never really had a shot at. Those aren't usually considered errors and therefore don't hurt your %.

Right bleed green, but if they have a lot of errors on turf, plus you get to fewer balls due to turf speed, then you are in a lot of trouble.

one thing I do know...visiting outfielders to the Disch have a big problem with bloop singles bouncing over their head, because of the turf. Re: A&M @ Texas last year.