SITTING PRETTY
Barrera’s walk-offff single in ninth puts Horns one win from championship game.
The Zen master’s got
TULSA, OKLA. — jokes.
The way it appeared, Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido had said something brilliant to Tres Barrera during a break with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning Thursday. The next pitch, Barrera ripped an RBI single to left with the bases loaded for a 4-3 victory over Baylor that advanced the Longhorns’ hopes of winning the Big 12 tournament title.
Garrido has spent 76 years building a personal fountain of wisdom, yet in a heart-wrenching moment he eschewed all of it for laughter. Barrera had just swung and missed on a change - up.
“I told him a dirty joke in Spanish,” Garrido sai d. He can’t be serious. “No really, he is,” Barrera said. “I walked up to him and he said, ‘I’m gonna tell you a joke. ’”
After UT’s poor regular season, no one is laughing at the Longhorns. They have come to Tulsa with the intention of stealing an NCAA postseason berth.
For the second day in a row, the Longhorns got a complete-game pi tching effort, enabling them to go the first 18 innings of this tournament without going to the bullpen. Ty Culbreth, who had never started a game before be-
ing promoted las t month because of injuries, followed the same path forged by Parker French on Wednesday against Texas Tech. They have given Texas (28-25) its first two complete games of the seas on.
Culbreth (4-4) allowed one runner to reach scoring position until the top of the ninth, when Mitch Price crushed an 0-2 mistake to right field for a three-run home. Barrera set up for a fastball off the plate, but, Culbreth admitted, “I definitely caught some of the plate.”
In the end, it mattered little. Culbreth was money, retiring the side in order in four innings and battling back from a shaky first inning when he fell behind 2-0 to three batters and walked two of them. He threw 120 pitches and outdueled Baylor’s Drew Tolson, who al so went nine innings.
“Those two complete games give us a much better chance to be succe s sful in this tournament than if we had to piece together several innings from the bullpen and use up several pitchers,” Garrido said.
While Texas is resting for the day, Baylor and Tech will pl ay an elimination game at 3:15 p.m. Friday. The surviving team must beat the Horns twice Saturday, whereas Texas needs to win once to reach Sunday’s championship game. First pitch is 9 a.m.
After a hard-luck season, Texas’ fortunes are changing. The Horns won a coin flip agai nst Baylor to be the home team Thursday — a stroke of luck in a one -run game.
The nine innings Culbreth threw are three more than his previous high. Though marquee players Ben Johnson and C.J Hinojosa have two hits between them in the tournament, Zane Gurwitz has reached base seven times. He went 3-for-4 Thursday.
And no one is shedding tears over not playing TCU. The Horned Frogs, who won the Big 12 regular season and swept Texas, were the first team to be eliminated after falling to Baylor and Tech.
Barrera scored the game’s first run, doubling to start the second inning and advancing on a wild pitch. He made it home on Collin Shaw’s bunt. Later in the inning, Brooks Marlow made a superb move on the bases to add a second run. Price, Baylor’s first baseman, fielded a grounder, stepped on first, and fired to second. Since the force was gone, Marlow got caught in a rundown long enough for Gurwitz to score from third.
Marlow, who had sat out the past two games after starting 50 in a row, added an RBI single in the sixth for a 3-0 lead.