Baseball returns to early season form
Back in the early '80s, major league pitcher Joaquin Andujar observed that "one word says it all about baseball: You never know ."
However mathematically confused he may have been, Andujar's statement provides an accurate analysis of the Rice baseball team's season to date.
At first, the Owls appeared bound for glory, with a 20-2 record and No. 9 national ranking. Then they were left for dead, mired in the Southwest Conference cellar with a 2-9 conference mark.
Now, thanks to eight consecutive victories, including a nifty sweep of Texas A&M University last weekend, Rice has shooed away the buzzards and recaptured some of their earlier success. The Owls (33-15 overall, 7-10 in the SWC) stand in the middle of the parity-laden conference standings, far behind front-running University of Texas (13-4 in the SWC) and Texas Tech University (11-7), but within reach of Baylor University (8-9), Texas Christian University (8-9) and A&M (8-10). The Owls are back in the national rankings: USA Today/Baseball Weekly ranks them 22nd this week.
If you're scoring at home, that's riches to rags to, if not quite riches, at least an upwardly-mobile upper-middle- class status. Rice has seven conference games left -- four against Baylor this weekend at Cameron Field and three against the University of Houston May 10-11 -- and winning five or six of those should give them enough victories to reach their goal of an NCAA regional tournament bid.
"I think there's a definite shot," Head Coach Wayne Graham said of his team's rejuvenated postseason hopes. "We gotta keep going, but I think right now we're the hottest team in the country."
Like countless other SWC encounters this year, the Baylor weekend's series has historical significance: These will be the final SWC home games for Rice. The Owls and Bears open tonight at 7 p.m., play a doubleheader tomorrow at 2 p.m. and close with a single game Sunday at 2 p.m.
"It's going to be a very interesting series, and probably an absolutely critical one for us," Graham said. "We must win three out of four games."
As has been the case with the Owls, the Bears, too, have been unpredictable in conference play. Baylor won three of four against Texas, but lost three of four to TCU and split four games with cellar-dwelling Houston.
Marty Crawford leads the Bear offense. The senior second baseman, who has batted better than .350 in each of the last three seasons, leads the SWC with a .487 average in conference play.
"Baylor's like us in a lot of ways," Graham said. "They have a lot of talent and a lot of young players, so they seem to be up and down a lot. Of course, everyone in the conference is up and down. They've got some pitching talent, even though their earned-run average doesn't look that way."
Pitching led the way to Rice's second series sweep in three seasons against A&M, who entered the series as the top hitting squad in the conference.
Shawn Onley, who has looked like a man pitching against boys in the last few weeks, mastered the Aggies in the opener. Onley struck out 10 and allowed just five hits in the Owls' first nine-inning complete-game shutout in two years, a 5-0 victory.
Although not quite as dominant as Onley, Stephen Bess and Matt Anderson held down Texas A&M in Saturday's doubleheader. Both pitchers appear on the verge of stardom, looking strong against a few batters, but then they lapse for a batter or two. Jeff Shaddix and Dana Davis finished off the victories.
Rice continued the strong pitching on Tuesday when Mark Taylor and Shaddix combined on a three-hit shutout in a 1-0 victory at Lamar. In their last 48 innings, a span of six games, Owl pitchers have allowed a mere five earned runs.
"We've got some people who have suddenly stepped up," Graham said. "There's a good chance we can do something if they can keep it up. Although the hitting's kinda dropped off, the pitching has been so good that we're winning."
Rice supported those pitching efforts with an offense that, if not the blitzkrieg bop it was in February and early March -- although Adam Herndon and Jacques Landry backed Onley's performance with home runs -- succeeded through more subtle means.
The Owls advanced a number of runners with sacrifice bunts and flyouts. Jeff Venghaus demonstrated a masterful job of bat control by fouling off several pitches before driving in three runs with an opposite-field double to put Rice ahead to stay in the second inning of Saturday's first game.
"The wind's blowing in a lot now," Graham said. "You can't sit back and wait for the home run with the wind blowing in at 15 miles an hour -- you have to play the whole game. We're going to have to do that better."
With the sweep, Rice continued its regular-season dominance over Texas A&M -- the Owls have taken 10 of 11 regular-season games from the Aggies in the last three seasons. This sweep was particularly sweet for Rice because it was their first meeting after a controversy-filled First Pitch Tournament game in which the Owls charged the Aggies with taping Graham's signs and throwing brushback pitches at Bubba Crosby.
"We get up for the Aggies, and we've just happened to play some of our best ball against them," Graham said. "They do some things to incite your adrenaline, and they may think it helps them, but it actually helps you because it gets you fired up against them."
This item appeared in the Sports section of the April 26, 1996 issue.
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