Texas baseball sinks again, threatening to take David Pierce down with the ship | Bohls

Give Texas credit for creativity.

The one time the Longhorns baseball team got very strong pitching from a starter, it completely forgot how to hit.

And win, too.

That combination once again served to hand this confounding, pitching-poor team yet another loss in a series opener. For the sixth straight time this season, five of them Big 12 series.

How’s that for consistency?

These Friday flops, continuing with a troubling 5-0 loss to a TCU club that had won only three games on the road all year, have seemingly doomed an unranked and very unappreciated Texas to a checkered season. But it’s always dangerous to discount a program that rarely disappoints.

That said, it’s been an aggravating season that admittedly looks as if it’s going nowhere at the same time it could possibly end up with a chance in the postseason if it keeps winning series.

If Texas does come back and win this TCU series, it’d find itself with a 11-7 record and in the thick of things with solid momentum. "We're just going to keep rolling with it," Texas' Peyton Powell said.

But if TCU manages to win Saturday or Sunday, the Longhorns could easily find themselves hard-pressed to even make the NCAA tournament without a strong rally in the final 16 games of the season. And that could spell big trouble for David Pierce, Texas' eighth-year head coach who could easily wind up on the hot seat.

A two-year College World Series drought in this town can seem like a lifetime, and whispers that he could be replaced could grow stronger with Texas’ move next season to the unforgiving SEC without a strong finish.

Texas baseball is fading at the worst time

For now, the Longhorns’ RPI dropped from 67 to a desperate 76th after that disastrous, 17-9 mid-week loss to UT-Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday, putting UT-Austin in a deep valley. D1Baseball this week listed Texas as one of the last four teams in the NCAAs, but that’s leaving little margin for error.

It’s interesting that the Horned Frogs and Longhorns were voted by the coaches to go first-second in this final Big 12 race for the local team. Yet they entered this series with Texas in fourth place and TCU in a more distant 11th.

“It might be hard to believe, but we’re still kicking in there,” said Powell, who had two of Texas’ five hits and tried his best to put a good spin on affairs. “We’ve got good mojo, and we’ve got good team camaraderie.”

Just no pitching.

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Texas' pitching woes are amplified

At least not until sophomore right-hander Max Grubbs threw one of his best games as a Longhorn. He struck out five and allowed only two runs in his 6⅓ innings with his 89 mph fastball and solid breaking stuff. "Max pitched his tail off tonight," Pierce said.

But good pitching performances have been few and far between this year. Texas’ 5.12 ERA marks its highest showing since 1999 and ranks 81st nationally. The threesome of Lebarron Johnson Jr., Charlie Hurley and Tanner Witt that started the year against San Diego with three no-decisions are a collective 3-4 with individual ERAs of 5.57, 7.71 and 5.79.

Mercy.

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Finding ways to lose, not ways to win

But as maddening as this pitching has been, its occasionally batting failures can also rise up and bite Texas at any moment. Like Friday, when they struck out 10 times and were held to five singles by Big 12 strikeout leader Payton Tolle Jr., an electric left-hander with a fluid style and a 95 mph fastball.

Friday’s represented the first shutout of the season for a Texas team that normally blisters the baseball and averages 7.6 runs a game. Heck, seven Longhorns regulars carry averages of .317 or better, and they hit the ball over the fence as well as any team in the league.,

Sometimes it’s some dicey fielding mistakes like right fielder Max Belyeu’s ill-fated decision to try to catch Kurtis Byrne’s sinking line drive, only to watch it roll to the warning track for a Horned Frog triple and eventual run.

But usually it’s been atrocious pitching. And that’s on Pierce, who made the mistake of naming himself pitching coach after curiously firing Woody Williams after one season. They’ve won series against Texas Tech, Baylor, Kansas State and Houston, but four of Texas’ seven losses have come to three teams at the bottom of the Big 12 standings, two to BYU.

“We can go from really good baseball to really ugly baseball,” Pierce said. “You know there’s some youth on the field. There’s some guys that are searching a little bit and just pitchers need to continue to give us a chance to win. It’s been tough. We’re just finding ways to lose instead of finding ways to win.”

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So does Pierce second-guess himself for naming himself pitching coach to go with all his other duties as head coach?

“No, not at all,” he said. “That’s a good question. It’s a fair question. But at the same time, there’s a lot of different variables that go along with it. I wouldn’t say second-guess. Frustrated? Yeah, just like everybody else.”

Is help on the way? Texas hopes so

Potential ace Tanner Witt, recovering from Tommy John surgery some 2½ years ago, is about to start throwing again. The stout right-hander who once looked so dominating in an outing against Tennessee at the College World Series is 0-1 with a 5.79 ERA. In Big 12 play, he’s pitched only two innings and carries a hideous 13.40.

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Even worse, this is a team without a strong No. 2 and 3 pitcher in the rotation, much less an ace.

Johnson, the projected Big 12 pitcher of the year, has completely fizzled. He’s 1-3 with a rough 5.57 ERA and hasn’t won since Feb. 23. Longhorn Nation undoubtedly penciled him in with double-digit wins by now. Hadn’t happened.

Could be he just wasn’t as talented as everyone thought. Maybe he’s still a thrower and not a pitcher. He’s certainly not polished and has had command issues all season. In 42 innings, he’s allowed 48 hits and has walked 26 batters. Opposing batters have clocked him for a .294 average, one of the worst on the staff.

“That’s a tough call,” Pierce said when asked what’s gone wrong with him. “Because he snuck up on everybody last year. There’s a lot of film study (on him). There’s a lot of things people were addressing and (batters are) trying to lay off his best pitches, and he’s just been slightly below (form). It just eats at you. Sometimes those negatives creep in.”

Johnson's been bumped from the Friday night slot into the back end of the rotation on Sunday. Should he figure it all out in the late going, he could give the Longhorns a huge shot in the arm.

But that’s a big if. Otherwise, those creeping negatives might just sneak up and bury Pierce if he’s not careful.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas baseball struggles again in 5-0 loss to TCU at home