Longhorn Baseball: New and Improved Offense?
Over the last several years, Texas Longhorn baseball fans have been able to count on three things:
- The Longhorns will have one of the best pitching staffs in college baseball.
- Texas will field one of the best defensive teams in the country.
- They will not be a high-powered hitting team, but instead rely on small ball to generate runs.
This season’s team, however, could look a little different. For the first time in many, many seasons, pitching is the biggest question mark, while the batting line-up looks to be one of the best since Augie Garrido arrived.
Before we take a look at the offensive stats, it’s important to note that the NCAA is using a new baseball this season, moving to a flat seamed ball. This move should increase the amount of runs scored across the country this year.
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In recent seasons, the Texas offense has struggled behind the plate with a lack of consistent power hitters and the fact that there were weak spots in the line-up. Last year, the Longhorns had just two players who hit above .300 for the season and they’re both gone. The team averaged just over four runs per game and hit 22 home runs over the course of their 67 total games.
Clearly, it’s very early in the season, but this year’s lineup doesn’t appear to have many holes. As a result, Texas fans could likely see a team that is better suited to push runs across the plate.
In their season-opening, four-game series vs. the Rice Owls, a team who is also known for their solid pitching, the Longhorns posted 18 total runs on 31 total hits.
Texas Longhorns
On Tuesday night, in the Horns’ first game at the Disch this season, Texas racked up 14 runs on 20 hits, which is the most hits Texas has had in one game since the 2009 season.
Currently, the Longhorns have three batters hitting .400 or above: Ben Johnson (.458), Tres Barrera (.400) and Michael Cantu (.400).
Additionally, Brett Boswell, Michael McCann, and Collin Shaw are all currently hitting above .300.
So, is it the ball that has opened up the offense? Is it just a fluke since it’s such a small sample size?
Barrera explained that this offensive improvement is the result of a different approach during the off-season:
"Sometimes you can hit the ball hard all the time and you don’t get hits. You’re definitely going to see more aggressive at-bats with our team. We worked on that in the offseason. Everybody’s swinging the bat pretty well right now and if we keep that going we’re going to be tough to beat."
While it’s far, far, far too early to judge this year’s offense through just five games– in fact it would be ridiculous to do so–the fact that the Longhorns have strong hitters in from the top to the bottom of the line-up bodes very well for this team.
The very early offensive numbers seem to support the idea that fans could see an improved offense.
We will see how it plays out, but Barerra is right; if this team is able to keep swinging the bat well all season, then they will certainly be incredibly difficult to beat.