Garrido, Longhorns ready for another last-gasp effort
AUSTIN — At his lowest point this spring, Augie Garrido vowed his team would turn things around. Then, in his next breath, the grizzled Texas baseball coach excused himself and announced his plans for the afternoon.
“I’m going to lay in the street and see if I can get hit by a truck,” Garrido said.
Three weeks later, with his Longhorns still sporting a losing record but feeling emboldened by a recent surge, Garrido insisted his outlook has become less bleak.
So can we forget about the truck?
“Yeah,” Garrido said. “I’d turn it into a sports car now.”
Hanging on
For a 77-year-old man who somehow manages to intersperse pieces of hope and Zen with gallows humor, this counted as progress. But as his 20th season at UT heads into its home stretch, it remains unclear whether Garrido is waiting for another unlikely revival or to be put out of his misery.
Thanks to two victories at nationally ranked Texas Tech last week, the Longhorns aren’t dead yet. With a record of 21-22 entering this weekend’s series against Oklahoma State, UT is still clinging to Garrido’s belief that an at-large berth in NCAA regional remains a possibility.
All he thinks the Longhorns have to do is beat the Cowboys three times at home – and then win all eight of their remain- ing regular-season games. Add those 11 victories to the three UT has earned since last Saturday, and that’s a 14-0 finish. Seems simple enough. “We’re in the hunt, for sure,” Garrido said.
Familiar story
It wouldn’t be the first time in recent years Garrido has postponed his own demise. After the Longhorns missed the postseason in both 2012 and 2013, he was asked the customary questions about the inevitable end of his illustrious career, and the eulogies were prepared. Then he took UT to the 2014 College World Series, where they were stopped one inning short of the championship series.
As a reward he received a contract extension, and then almost immediately the questions came again. Last year, the Longhorns looked doomed again, limping through May with a record right at .500. Their only hope was to win the Big 12 tournament. And they did. Now they’ve put themselves in a similar predicament. If they can’t either run the regular-season table or pull off a repeat shocker at the conference tournament, they’ll fail to reach an NCAA regional for the third time in five years. This time, they’ll do so with only one season remaining on Garrido’s $1 million-per-year contract, and the knowledge that it’s difficult to operate a program as a lame-duck coach.
But if the winningest coach in college baseball history is worried about that, he’s not showing it. Garrido, as usual, is adamant in saying the Longhorns have the power to change everything.
“We’ve had an awful lot to do with our win- ning,” Garrido said. “And we’ve had an awful lot to do with our losing. We’ve been in control of both sides of it.”
His players buy it. They think something clicked in Lubbock, and that a team beset by injuries and ineffectiveness for almost three months finally is ready to exert itself. They’ve already won series against TCU and Tech, the top two teams in the Big 12.
So the way they see it, sweeping everyone else doesn’t seem like too tall of an order.
“I’d never say we’re the underdog,” infielder Joe Baker said.
And if they pull it off ? Garrido might not have to throw himself in front of any kind of vehicle at all.
“We’ve been through the downs,” Baker said. “Now it’s time for the ups.”