Ace Whitehead looks like the right pitcher at the right time for struggling Texas | Bohls
With the Texas bullpen pretty much in disarray, David Pierce turned to his ace on Saturday.
No, not Lebarron Johnson Jr.
Not that ace.
The Longhorns coach called on the aptly named reliever Ace Whitehead. And the junior left-hander from Lampasas pitched like, well, a bona fide ace, which is probably why he might find himself in the starting rotation sooner than later. Somebody has to.
He may not completely fit the bill or look the part of a starter in the Big 12. He doesn’t have dominant stuff. His fastball tops out at 88 mph on most days. And he’s started just four games in his college career, all of them last season.
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But the fiery southpaw can pitch with command, locate his fastball, spot his changeup, field his butt off on the mound like his infield behind him and, most importantly, be effective.
A shining light in a disappointing loss
He especially was on Saturday, even in a Texas loss, the team’s sixth in its last nine games. The Longhorns lost 5-3, falling to Washington for the second straight day to lose their first three-game series of the year before Sunday’s finale.
Come to think of it, Texas (10-8) probably shouldn’t ever schedule the Huskies in anything again, no matter the sport.
After all, the Pac 12-turned-Big Ten school has gotten the better of Texas' football team in the Sugar and Alamo bowls the last two years, and this was especially painful since the Huskies came into this series with a mediocre 4-7-1 record.
“We’re playing good baseball,” UW second-year coach Jason Kelly said. “When you do that, it doesn’t matter if we’re playing the Mariners or Texas or LSU.”
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Kelly’s club has played resourceful baseball here, getting solid pitching from Saturday starter Calvin Kirchoff. He threw four different pitches for strikes for six strong innings before lefty Sam Boyle finished it off with three spotless frames. Texas didn’t get a leadoff batter on base all game until Rylan Galvan started the ninth with a double, only to be stranded there.
How good were their pitchers?
“They walked zero and struck out 10,” a frustrated Pierce said. “They’re a good pitching team and they don’t give you much, which makes it difficult.”
They gave up a pair of home runs to Will Gasparino and Jalin Flores and an RBI single to Porter Brown and nothing else. Texas had just seven hits on the day, but that was three more than Washington.
Texas is still trying to figure out its pitching
All of which made Whitehead’s heroics go for naught, at least in the short term.
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“It’s embarrassing to go out and get two innings from our starter,” Pierce said.
That’s because Cody Howard, Texas' current No. 2 starter for the moment, had a miserable outing. The right-hander has had some solid performances but has fallen into a severe rut, having now given up five earned runs in each of his last three starts against Vanderbilt, Texas Tech and now Washington.
After surrendering a sac fly and a two-run homer in the first, Howard didn’t get an out in the third inning, walking a man and hitting two batters. Whitehead came on to minimize the damage from the bases-loaded, no-outs jam but not before two RBI groundouts.
He was completely stingy afterward, throwing a career-high seven scoreless innings and retiring 21 of 23 batters. He allowed only a single hit over that span, that to hitting machine Jeter Ybarra for the Husky’s sixth hit in seven at-bats in the series to go with five RBIs.
Was that Whitehead's best performance as a Longhorn?
“Probably,” Whitehead said. “I just felt pretty convicted today. I knew if I could just fill up the rectangle and let the guys work behind me that we’d be all right. My defense made some exceptional plays.”
Do you want to be a starter?
“Honestly, I just like to pitch,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me coming out of the pen or starting. Whatever helps the team.”
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Whitehead may be the right pitcher at the right time for Texas
He’s also a fearless competitor, which could stem from his football genes. He was a star dual-threat quarterback at Lampasas who was the state's Class 4A offensive player of year after totaling 170 touchdowns and 12,500 career yards. He’d have loved to play both sports at Texas, but he was only offered football spots from Tarleton State and Angelo State and invited to be a preferred walk-on at Texas State.
When he wasn’t excelling on a football field, track or baseball diamond, he stood out in the classroom as a member of the National Honor Society.
Oh, and he answers to the nickname “Boogie.”
He got the tag at a middle school Valentine’s Day dance where he, well, boogied down.
“Yeah, I was dancing a lot, and I used to be fast,” Whitehead said. “So they started calling me Boogie. It just kind of stuck.”
Now he may stick in the rotation although he’s not cut from the usual mold of Longhorns starters and is hardly overpowering. But this compact, solidly built 5-foot-11, 195-pounder is showing signs of delivering.
But give him the ball and watch him carve up hitters as he did in yet another loss, but not one of his doing. Just last week he struck out seven and gave up five hits and three runs in almost five innings to get a win against Texas Tech.
“I’ve always been impressed with him,” Pierce said. “He did a tremendous job today. Just tremendous.”
He got Kelly’s notice, too.
“He mixed his pitches well and had a good fastball down and away, which nobody likes to hit,” he said. “He got us out front. Credit to him, he did a good job.”
Pierce doesn’t need to be convinced. He seems to be at wit’s end trying to come up with reliable pitchers.
“I’m just looking for guys to be reliable,” Pierce said. “I’m not asking them to be perfect.”
Heck, he’s tried seven others and is desperate for a capable starter behind Johnson, who hasn’t been all that dominant himself with only one win in his first five starts. Howard’s burgeoning ERA ballooned to 7.11 after Saturday, but his fellow starters haven’t fared a whole lot better. Charlie Hurley, cast in the role of No. 2 early this season, has a gloomy 6.75 ERA and Tanner Witt isn’t much better at 5.79.
The same goes for the bullpen and stalwart David Shaw, who has allowed nine runs in seven innings for a 7.71 ERA.
“We’ve got some really talented guys in there, and things haven’t gone our way so far,” Whitehead said. “But I know if we keep working and keep our nose on the grindstone, we’re going to be right at the end.”
Spoken like a true ace.
Sunday's game
Washington (6-7-1) at No. 23 Texas (10-8), 1 p.m., LHN, 1300
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Ace Whitehead brings relief for Texas baseball but not a victory
