The Field of 64 and The Bubble

[GoneGolfin]

Brian can probably answer that better than I can. I haven’t seen Texas since the weekend at MMP.

Going just off of that, they have a ton of power in their lineup and I remember quite a few balls DEEP into the seats in RF. And looking at their stats confirmed the “ton of power”. They’ve hit 109 HRs this season. Limit free passes and keep the HRs to solo shots.

They don’t have the typical U of Texas pitching that they’ve been known for over the last 40 years!

Cajuns will need to score some runs to beat them.

I do not have the splits for Texas, but their typical starting lineup features five lefties ... including three of the first four in the lineup being lefties (59 HRs among these four ... 42 HRs among the three lefties). They hit for power up and down the lineup, with eight of the nine hitters with 8 or more HRs. This is with 36 of their 57 games coming at Disch-Falk (a pitcher's park with cavernous outfields).

Jared Thomas is not your typical first baseman in that he has excellent speed and hits leadoff. But he also hits for power (15 HRs) and leads the team in hitting (.353). The Horns feature all of their offensive production despite Porter Brown having a down year (.213 with 8 HRs). He hit .323 with 12 HRs a year ago and was an important part of their winning the Coral Gables regional and giving Stanford all they could handle in the super regional.

As I mentioned earlier, the pitching is not as good as it has been historically (not your Dad's Texas Longhorns team). But they are very capable. All-American Lebarron Johnson Jr. has really struggled this year, having lost the command he showed last season. He did have a good outing in the final conference game against Kansas ... but struggled mightily again in the final conference tournament game against Cincinnati (all over the place, as well as walking hitters). He has electric stuff (96-98 with movement to go with a hammer slider). But given his struggles, the approach to take with him is to be patient. If the Cajuns take an aggressive approach with him and are not patient (including taking the free passes), he will eat them up. You cannot bail out this guy.

The Cajuns could see lefty Ace Whitehead in the Friday opener. The other current starters are righties (Hurley, Grubbs, LBJ Jr.). The junior lefty played high school ball not far from where I live in the hill country west of Austin ... and was an all-stater in multiple sports (including QB). He is not a hard thrower (upper 80's, maybe 90), but typically has good command, and quality change and breaking ball. I have seen him keep good hitters off balance.

Top prospect Tanner Witt (formerly a freshman All-American), son of Bobby Witt, never seemed to have recovered from his injuries. He has only thrown about 20 innings over the past two seasons.

Texas is the kind of team that could win this regional and make it to Omaha ... or flame out in two or three games.

Brian

[Dad04]

True.

Some will have to stay hot, and some will have to get hot.

We in the have to get hot column

[Esqueleto]

For anyone who has attended our regionals in College Station in the past, how hard was it to get tickets to the games against A&M and other teams in the regional? Is it better to buy the session pass or is it easy to get single game tickets? We had no trouble getting tickets last year in Miami, but it sounds like this will be different.

We went 2 years ago and were able to get good seats on their resale marketplace prior to the start of the tournament. It was over face value, but IIRC it wasn't outrageous

[CajunAmos]

https://12thmanfoundation.evenue.net...ller=&appCode=