Texas Baseball Begins 2012 Campaign Against Duke: Preview and Open Thread

by 40AS on Feb 17, 2012 12:00 PM CST in Texas Longhorns Baseball

[Update]: The game for Friday evening has been canceled because of rain. Texas and Duke will play a double-header on Saturday, with the first game scheduled for a 2 pm CST start and the second for 6 pm CST. --Wescott--

Texas baseball begins the journey back to Omaha tonight with a 7 PM Central tilt with Duke. This Horns team will be of completely different character than the one that accomplished its goal in 2011 (reach Omaha) but failed to win a game while there. Gone are Taylor Jungmann, Cole Green, Brandon Loy and Tant Shepard (to the pros), CF Cohl Walla and likely Friday starter Sam Stafford (injury), and 2B Jordan Etier (4 game suspension).

What you will see if you watch Texas in 2012 will be a number of very talented young pitchers on the mound, none who are likely to bring Jungmann's star power. At the plate you'll see Erich Weiss and a whole lot of question marks looking to pound out enough runs to win some ball games. In the field you should see one of the Big 12's best fielding ballclubs with huge questions at arguably the two most important defensive positions aside from catcher (SS and CF).

If you are fortunate enough to have the Longhorn Network, then tonight's matchup will be the first of many spectacular treats for the year as all but one home game is slated to appear on LHN. If you don't have LHN, then welcome back to 2001, hope your radio gets 1300 AM without static.

The Duke Blue Devils were 26-30 a year ago, having fairly horrendous marks on the road (5-17) and in conference play (7-23). Sophomore outfielder Anthony D'Alessandro is the lone returning Blue Devil to hit above .300 in 2011, posting a .303/.383/.364 (BA/OBP/Slg) line. The Duke offense also returns sophomore Chris Marconcini, who led the Blue Devil offense with 4 homers a year ago. As a team Duke managed just 10 long balls in 56 contests.

Duke returns Marcus Stroman and Robert Huber, both weekend starters for the Blue Devils last year. Neither was particularly amazing, although Stroman's record belies an impressive season (90 Ks in 64 IP, 4 saves, 4.5:1 BB:K ratio).

Join us after the jump for the weekend's pitching matchups and tonight's open thread.

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUPS
Friday, Feb. 17, 2012 - 7 p.m. Central
Texas: RHP Nathan Thornhill (3-0, 1.89 ERA)
Duke: RHP Marcus Stroman (3-4, 2.80 ERA)

Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012 - 6 p.m. Central
Texas: LHP Hoby Milner (7-4, 2.45 ERA)
Duke: LHP Trent Swart (Freshman)

Sunday, Feb. 19, 2011 - 12 p.m. Central
Texas: RHP John Curtiss (Freshman)
Duke: RHP Robert Huber (4-1, 4.37 ERA)

0 recs | 17 comments

Comments

Glad baseball is back

Sad I don’t get to watch it…

TowerPower - February 17, 2012 via mobile reply

Woooohooooo!

Time to find me a bar that has Verizon Fios

kriess - February 17, 2012 reply

Good to have baseball back

And I appreciate all of the updates and info. Let’s do this.

BeeCaveHornFan - February 17, 2012 via mobile reply

I guessing this may work for tonight

justin.tv/texas4all
pw:HookEm

TexasWright - February 17, 2012 reply

You are a good man

kriess - February 17, 2012 reply

been raining all day

I have tickets for tonight and its supposed to rain more later, where is the best place to find info on a possible cancellation??

Shane Yeo - February 17, 2012 reply

Will be announced on Texassports.com

as well as on Twitter. There will be updates around.

Wescott Eberts (GoBR) - February 17, 2012 reply

I believe I saw

that Stroman can top out about 98 despite the fact he is only 5-9, but I think he typically throws in the 93-94 range.

The lack of proven defense up the middle is concerning, as SS and CF are positions that have traditionally been played well under Augie in the last few years and are positions that have to be played well for a team that will once again rely on pitching and defense.

Wescott Eberts (GoBR) - February 17, 2012 reply

Stroman

My Duke friend texted me this morning that he is a pre-season All-American.

Sleepy - February 17, 2012 reply

The weather doesn't look good.

Hopefully it clears up a little bit.

I’m intrigued to see how these freshmen do. Do any more Longhorns get injured? How do Thornhill and Milner handle being our #1 and #2. Does Kevin Lusson hit like he in the regular season or the 9th inning of the Regional in 2011? Can we even get in position for Knebel to get saves, or will the score be 0-0 the entire game? So many question marks.

Mclovin1035 - February 17, 2012 reply

Duke Baseball

Duke baseball is in the same boat the football team is, but in some ways worse since the football team has upgraded facilities significantly. I don’t believe they’ve made the post season since Ray Jackson was on the team in ’93 or ’94. It was fun watching Duke baseball while we were there in the mid to late ’90s, but there was definitely a club team feel to it despite all of the talent rolling through from the ACC.

Stroman is supposed to be a high round pick. He’s the type of guy that can beat a weaker offensive UT team in a 2-1, 1—0 type game. But the rest of Duke is pretty low rent.

Now that Scott Schoenweis has retired, I think Chris Capuono is the only Duke guy currently in the majors. Other than those 2, only Mike Trombley and Quinten McCracken has seen serious big league innings in the past 20 years. So that should tell you something about the state of the program. It’s pretty much one of the 3-5 worst BCS conference schools year in and year out. Sigh.

A-Tex Devil - February 17, 2012 reply