By Foster Nicholas | Sports Editor
Consistency has been hard to come by for Baylor baseball despite its best record under head coach Mitch Thompson.
With a Tuesday night win over UT Arlington, the Bears (23-13, 6-9 Big 12) officially exceeded the win totals from the previous two seasons under Thomson (20 and 22, respectively). But after exploding for 18 runs on Saturday against Texas Tech, more than the team had scored in its previous six games combined, a 5-0 lead vanished on Sunday and the green and gold dropped their fourth Big 12 series.
“We’ve gone through the year, and we’ve just never really synced it all up together and gone on a roll,” Thompson said. “So, if we’re going to go on one, it’d be a nice time to go on it here at the end of the year.”
Searching for consistency and a spark, Baylor welcomes with new Big 12 addition Utah (15-17, 4-11 Big 12) to Baylor Ballpark for the first time in program history. Redshirt sophomore infielder Travis Snaders, who is hitting .410 over the team’s last 10 games, has his eyes set on making the series the Bears’ first home Big 12 series win of the year.
“The past two weekends it’s been up and down,” Sanders said. “One day we’ll show up and we’ll hit, another day our pitching, or another day it’s defense. The biggest thing for us is just consistency. When we come out together, we play consistently like we did Game Two at Tech.”
The 18-run outburst referenced by Sanders was headlined by senior outfielder Wesley Jordan hitting three home runs in the first three innings. Behind Jordan, the pitching staff, which ranks No. 5 in the Big 12 in ERA (4.53) and No. 3 in walks allowed (122), dazzled. Without many games where the combination of hitting, pitching and defense are as explosive, Sanders and the Bears feel the untapped potential.
“Whenever we’re all together and everything’s clicking, the pressure is very, very, very tight for the other team,” Sanders said. “I think it’s just going to get better as we go. We’re still making connections and bonding.”
With a lefty-heavy lineup for the Utes, Baylor’s 25-game streak with a left-handed starting pitcher will keep rolling. Junior left-handed pitcher Ethan Calder will take the rock on Thursday, followed by freshman left-handed pitcher Carson Bailey on Friday and sophomore left-handed pitcher Mason Green on Saturday.
Not all the workload will fall on the starting pitcher, but Bailey said the staff is focusing on what it can control and taking the mound with confidence.
“We can have one good game throughout the series, but we need more,” Bailey said. “I know it’s going to come, and the guys are fighting right now, and we’re getting through it, and we’re going to get through it, and we’re going to pounce on the next team. We’re going to do us.”
Utah rolls into the series with the Bears holding the No. 6 batting average in the conference (.297), but lacks power, hitting just 16 home runs on the year (16 fewer than the team in front of them). The pitching staff has struggled to find its footing, holding bottom-three marks in ERA (6.08), strikeouts (234) and batting average against (.291).
“It doesn’t matter who we play, it’s how we play,” Thompson said. “We need to play Utah really well. I think they’re a good club, and I know they’re going to be well-coached … We think we match up well, but we’ve got to go out and play. And we need to be on the winning side of it rather than the losing side of a series.
The Bears open a three-game series with the Utes at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Baylor Ballpark. Game Two will see first pitch at 6:30 p.m. Friday, with the series finale starting at 1 p.m. Saturday to allow for a restful Easter Sunday.
