Check out all of WBR’s 2014 College World Series coverage.
Game 5 (Loser’s Bracket Game): Texas 4, Louisville 1
Parker French had a stellar performance to keep Texas alive (Spomer/WBR)
Both starting pitchers lived in the zone the first couple of innings, but it was Louisville right hander Anthony Kidston who ran into trouble as he approached his second time through the order. Longhorns’ No. 9 hitter Zane Gurwitz roped a double to the wall down the left field line. A swinging bunt by second baseman Brooks Marlow moved Gurwitz to third, and two-hole hitter Ben Johnson brought him home with a sacrifice fly to Jeff Gardner in left to give Texas an early 1-0 lead. Gardner, the AAC Player of the Year, made a strong throw to the plate, but Gurwitz got in under the tag.
The Horns continued to make Kidston, who came in having not lost a decision since his junior year of high school, pay for his accuracy. C.J. Hinojosa and Collin Shaw singled in consecutive at-bats to begin the 4th. Hinojosa would later score on a fielder’s choice RBI grounder to short by Kacy Clemens, son of former 7-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens, to give Longhorns’ starter Parker French a two-run cushion to work with after four innings. Back-to-back fielding errors by Cards’ second baseman Zach Lucas, the third errors of the game for Louisville, bit the Cardinals in the top of the fifth. The first error put center fielder Mark Payton in scoring position after he drew on one-out walk. The second, a bad throw trying to turn an inning-ending double play, allowed Payton to come home and give Texas a 3-0 lead.
Louisville got on the board in the 8th after chasing French from the game, but a fourth error in the top of the 9th resulted another unearned run to bring the deficit back to three runs.
“It’s baseball. Everybody’s that good in Omaha. Arguably the eight best teams in the country and the eight hottest teams in the country, so when you don’t play clean obviously it gets magnified out here,” said Louisville head coach Dan McDonnell. “The value of scoring a run is so important that you do your best to try to score a run and you do your best to try not to give up a run. Unfortunately we just gave them a few too many opportunities early and that puts you in a hole, and it’s not a good feeling with the conditions to be in a two or three-run hole.”
Texas reliever Travis Duke closed out the Cardinals with a 3-up, 3-down 9th inning to earn his first save of the season, and eliminate Louisville from the 2014 College World Series.
French earned his seventh win of the season after his 7.1 innings of one-run ball.
“The game was controlled from out point of view by the pitching of Parker French and Travis Duke,” said Texas head coach Augie Garrido. “Then you can’t have a well-pitched game without really good catching and Tres Barrera did a good job of that. He calls the majority of pitches, too, which isn’t always what goes on in college baseball. He’s a very mature baseball player and very much a student of the game. He really has a calming effect with his personality on the pitching staff.”
Texas moves on to yet another elimination game on Wednesday against the loser of Vanderbilt/UC Irvine. Despite having to come back up through the bracket, Garrido’s has faith in his team.
“This format is not nearly as difficult to come out and win the whole tournament after losing the first game as it used to be,” he said. “It still is challenging and you’re one game down, but before you could be two or three games down. … I think we have a pitching staff that can stand up to the number of that we have to win to win the national championship.”
Game 6 (Winner’s Bracket Game): Vanderbilt 6, UC Irvine 4
Vanderbilt keeps winning and has a huge advantage after win over UC-Irvine (Spomer/WBR)
A lead off walk by UC Irvine starting pitcher Elliot Surrey was the just beginning of the Anteaters’ troubles in the first inning. The next hitter up, Bryan Reynolds, drilled a single to left on an 0-2 offering from Surrey. Three straight Commodore bunts moved ’em over and drove ’em in as Vanderbilt sent 14th overall pick (Giants) Tyler Beede to the mound with a two-run lead before he had even thrown a pitch.
The Anteaters responded quickly to pick up their starter. Jonathan Munoz and Grant Palmer reached base with one out, and a base hit over the first baseman’s head by right fielder Kris Paulino brought home the first UC Irvine run. A sac bunt tied it up at 2-all one hitter later. Then lead off man Taylor Sparks, who drove in the tying run in Game 1 against Texas, single up the middle to bring home two more UC Irvine base runners and give the Anteaters a 4-2 lead over Beede and the Commodores.
“We had a good approach against Beede. He tends to be wild,” said UC Irvine right fielder Kris Paulino. “We were disciplined.”
The Anteaters chased Beede in the bottom of the fourth after the talented righty walked two and hit another. Vanderbilt turned to starter Walker Buehler out of the bullpen, and he quickly got out of the jam, sending the Commodores to the fifth still trailing by two runs. Although he entered with his team trailing by two runs, his performance would change the momentum permanently in Vanderbilt’s favor.
In the top of the fifth Vanderbilt got to Surrey again. After a single and a double to begin the inning, Vandy got RBI on a groundout by Vince Conde and a double by Zander Wiel to tie the game at 4-all. A walk and hit batter prompted UC Irvine head coach Mike Gillespie to call on Game 1 winning pitcher Evan Brock out of the bullpen. Brock induced a fly ball to Commodores’ center fielder John Norwood that was deep enough to score another run and put Vanderbilt back in front, 5-4. Brock struck out Karl Ellison in the following at-bat, but the damage was already done.
“This game was a surprisingly close score, because I promise you it felt like a root canal,” said UC Irvine head coach Mike Gillespie. “We got ‘out-everything’d’, particularly once Buehler came in the game.”
Norwood added an insurance run for the Commodores courtesy of an RBI single in the top of the 7th. That was more than enough run support for Buehler, who struck out eight Anteaters over the course of his 5.1 innings of hitless relief to improve his record to 12-2 on the season.
“Not anyone’s surprise but I think the game turned around when Walker [Buehler] came in the game,” Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin said. “It was a momentum change. He pounded the strike zone from the minute he got in there until the minute the game finished. Very impressive. A very mature approach to the game.”
Vanderbilt will not play again until Friday while they wait for the winner of the elimination game between Texas and UC Irvine. That game will be played on Wednesday at 7:00 pm (CT) at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha.