Baylor Baseball Shuts Out Rice, 9-0

Wed Mar 2 23:02:49 CST 2022

BAYLOR ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS – March 2, 2022

Baylor BSB Shuts Out Rice, 9-0
Six BU pitchers combine on two-hit shutout
For more information contact: Max Calderone, 254-265-1639, Max_Calderone at Baylor.edu<mailto:Max_Calderone at Baylor.edu>

THE RUNDOWN
HOUSTON – Baylor baseball (4-4) took care of business at Rice (2-6) Wednesday night, defeating the Owls 9-0 at Reckling Park in Houston.

Six BU pitchers combined to throw a two-hit shutout, including 7.1 innings of hitless baseball from five different relievers. A five-run fifth inning, thanks in part to two Rice errors and a two-run home run off the bat of Kyle Nevin, sparked the Bears offensively.

BU first got on the board in the top of the second, as Chase Wehsener singled and later scored thanks to a Rice error following Antonio Valdez’s single.

Freshman RHP Henry Cone gave the Bears 1.2 innings of work in his first-career start, then handed the ball to sophomore lefty Kobe Andrade (2-0) who went the next 2.1 before BU broke it open in the fifth.

Two runs scored on two Rice errors to make it 3-0 ahead of Nevin’s two-run long ball. It was his first homer of the season and just the second on the year for Baylor. Alex Gonzales then doubled in Valdez to extend the lead to 6-0.

Sophomore right-hander Chandler Freeman pitched a clean bottom of the fifth before sophomore LHP Cam Caley went the next two innings, striking out four.

One more run came across for the Bears in the seventh as Valdez drove in Nevin with his second hit of the night and BU added two in the eighth via a handful of wild pitches.

Sophomore righties Grant Golomb and Cole Stasio finished it off for Baylor, retiring the final six batters in order to put the lid on the victory.

NOTES
• Baylor improves to 129-88-1 all-time against Rice and 1-1 against the Owls under seventh-year head coach Steve Rodriguez.
• The Bears are now 45-15 in midweek games under Rodriguez, having won 9 of their last 10 such games.
• BU is now 49-47 in road games during the Rodriguez era.
• This is Baylor’s second nine-run win of the year.
• This is BU’s first nine-inning shutout victory since April 1, 2021 against North Carolina A&T (6-0).
• 9-0 is Baylor’s largest margin of victory in a shutout since March 14, 2021 vs. Xavier (10-0).
• 13 hits are a season-high for the Bears.
• Five BU relievers combined to throw 7.1 hitless innings.
• Sophomore OF Kyle Nevin hit his first home run of the season and second of his career.
• Sophomore OF Jared McKenzie has reached base safely in 14-straight games, dating back to last season.
• Junior INF Jack Pineda has reached base safely in 11 consecutive games, dating back to 2021.
• Pineda notched his third multi-hit game of the season, a team best, and first three-hit outing of the year.
• Senior INF Esteban Cardoza-Oquendo has reached base safely in six consecutive games.
• Sophomore C Harrison Caley has a five-game hitting streak.
• Junior 1B Chase Wehsener has reached base safely in five-straight games.
• Sophomore INF/OF Alex Gonzales and junior INF Antonio Valdez each collected their first multi-hit games of the year.
• Sophomore LHP/OF Kobe Andrade picked up his second win of the season.
• Freshman RHP Henry Cone made his first-career start and went 1.2 scoreless innings.
• Freshman 1B Casen Neumann made his collegiate debut as a pinch hitter in the ninth inning.

STAT OF THE GAME
7.1 – Five Baylor pitchers combined to throw 7.1 hitless innings of relief in the two-hit shutout.

TOP QUOTES
Head coach Steve Rodriguez
On tonight’s approach offensively…
“The biggest thing was we just forced contact and put the ball in play. Our execution was pretty good tonight and we’ve kind of been harping on that the past couple weekends. When you get to two strikes, at that point you’re really just competing for the team to put the ball in play and make good things happen, and we were able to do that tonight.”

On collecting a road victory…
“It’s huge. Any time you can go on the road and win is always a great thing. Being able to come down here, before we head into Minute Maid [for the Shriners Children’s College Classic] against some really good teams is always good, especially when we have an opportunity to play really well.”

WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor (4-4) remains in Houston for the Shriners Children’s College Classic at Minute Maid Park, with its first game of the tournament set for Friday at 11 a.m. CT against No. 23 UCLA (6-3).

For the latest news on the Baylor baseball team all season long, follow its official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts: @BaylorBaseball.

-BaylorBears.com-

__________________________________

Max Calderone | Associate Director of Athletics Communications (BSB, FB, EQ)
Department of Athletics | Baylor University
C: 254-265-1639

[signature_1651176381]<http://baylorbears.com/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20220303/600d4764/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 11693 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20220303/600d4764/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: BU08 Box Score.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 43711 bytes
Desc: BU08 Box Score.pdf
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20220303/600d4764/attachment-0002.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 2022 BSB Season Stats.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 168933 bytes
Desc: 2022 BSB Season Stats.pdf
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/localmedia/attachments/20220303/600d4764/attachment-0003.pdf>