Arizona baseball recap: Wildcats struggle at Texas Tech, lose 13-1

Two straight losses now

In a battle of two of the top teams in the country, the Texas Tech Red Raiders looked the part, while the Arizona Wildcats did not.

The Red Raiders (12-2) took this one in front of a sell-out crowd in Lubbock by a score of 13-1. It was the first meeting between two top-ten teams at Tech’s ballpark since at least 1998.

Arizona (10-2) did take an early 1-0 lead in the first thanks to an unearned Mitchell Morimoto run scored on an Alfonso Rivas groundout.

But from there, it was all Red Raiders.

They quickly took the lead in the second inning with a pair of RBI singles off of Tylor Megill, and never looked back.

Megill, who had struggled as the second weekend starter in the first two weeks, did slightly better in this one, but not a ton. He ended up going four innings, the longest outing of his Arizona career, but gave up five earned runs, eight hits, and two walks along the way.

Texas Tech tacked on two more runs in the 5th, then really busted it open with a six-run sixth.

Randy Labaut kicked that one off with a hit batter, drawing a stare back to the mound from Red Raider second baseman Michael Davis. That ended Labaut’s outing at ²⁄₃ of an inning, ceding the mound to Seve Romo.

That’s when things got really ugly.

Romo, a junior college transfer from East LA Community College, went walk, HBP, walk, fly out, walk, fly out, one-run single. He really struggled to find the strike zone, getting just nine of his 26 total pitches in there.

Ryan Gowens came in and promptly gave up a two-run double, but then got in a little bit of a groove. He actually put up the best line of the night from an Arizona pitcher, lasting 1 ¹⁄₃ scoreless innings, surrendering two hits and a walk. He also struck out three.

Robby Medel tossed a scoreless eighth, walked one, and had another batter reach base on an error.

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Sunday’s loss to Nebraska had one glaring stat, and that was 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position as a team.

Well, the Cats did something similar on Tuesday, going 0-for-8 at the plate in that particular situation. On the flip side, Texas Tech was 7-for-17. That’ll do it.

Morimoto and Jared Oliva each reached base three times in this one.

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Arizona returns home for a three-game series against the Hartford Hawks. Friday’s game will begin at 6 PM MT, then the games will be played at 2 PM and 1 PM local time on Saturday and Sunday. Hartford is 1-5 this year, with its lone win coming against Butler. The Hawks have a date with Central Connecticut State on Wednesday before heading to Tucson.

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