No. 1 Texas wins 2-1 pitcher’s duel against Texas A&M

An RBI double and a home run were enough for the Horns behind strong pitching performance from Ruger Riojas, Max Grubbs, and Dylan Volantis.

In a second straight pitcher’s duel to open a big SEC series, the No. 1 Texas Longhorns once again came out on top, securing a 2-1 win against the Texas A&M Aggies in the Lone Star Showdown on Friday night at UFCU Disch-Falk Field as the two rivals played a conference matchup for the first time in 13 years.

Texas was keyed by strong performances from three pitchers and clutch hits from junior second baseman Jayden Duplantier and sophomore right fielder Tommy Farmer, who hit his first career home run to secure an important insurance run in the top of the seventh inning.

Moving into the Friday role for the first time in the wake of the season-ending shoulder injury suffered by senior left-hander Jared Spencer, junior right-hander Ruger Riojas pitched with the same composure and execution he did since taking over on Sundays, throwing 5.2 scoreless innings against a surging Aggies lineup averaging 11.4 runs per game over its 10-1 stretch entering the weekend. Riojas scattered five hits and worked around two hit batters while striking out five to earn his eighth win of the season.

The biggest jam for Riojas came in the fifth, although he ensured that Texas A&M wasn’t able to open up a lead by helping his own cause after allowing a leadoff single, showcasing his athleticism off the mound and starting a 1-6-3 double play with a sidearm delivery to second base.

It’s an arm slot that Riojas employs as a pitcher, but also one that pitching coach Max Weiner forces his pitchers to use working like middle infielders in drills.

The double play loomed large after Riojas gave up an infield single and a single to center field that brought up A&M slugger Jace LaViolette, a matchup made more difficult because LaViolette is a left-handed batter. On a 2-1 pitch from Riojas, LaViolette hit it well to center field, but the park held it and sophomore center fielder Will Gasparino was able to make the play on the warning track.

Riojas came off the field smiling as if there was never any chance the powerful LaViolette could drive it out of the park against him.

As Riojas got up to 89 pitches after recording two outs in the sixth inning, Schlossnagle turned to junior right-hander Max Grubbs, who got away with uncharacteristically hanging a several breaking balls and gave up a long fly ball to Texas A&M first baseman Gavin Kash to the warning track in the seventh inning, a drive once again held by the ballpark in which Kash started his collegiate career.

With LaViolette looming as the third batter in the eighth inning, Grubbs was always going to give way to closer Dylan Volantis, the freshman left-hander. It happened to come with a runner on second base and one out after a leadoff double by the Aggies.

Volantis looked poise to strand that runner after making LaViolette look uncomfortable in an at bat that ended with a check-swing strikeout on the elite spike curveball that Volantis employs frequently, but a subsequent high fly ball in the infield against a shift left Volantis looking to his teammates for help and senior first baseman Kimble Schuessler visibly struggling to locate the baseball and eventually failing to come up with a falling catch that allowed the runner to score from second to make it 2-1.

Falling behind the next batter 2-0, Volantis gave up an infield single to second base on a weakly-hit ball with Duplantier shaded towards first base, but was able to recover from getting behind 2-0 once again by striking out Bear Harrison swinging on a 2-2 pitch.

The ninth wasn’t much easier for Volantis, who walked the leadoff batter and gave up a two-out single to put the tying run on second base, but the tall Californian only needed three pitches to dispatch A&M’s leadoff hitter Terrence Kiel on that devastating curveball.

The strikeout recorded the SEC-leading ninth save of the season for Volantis, who needed 40 pitches to record five outs and won’t be available on Saturday.

Facing A&M left-hander Ryan Prager and the front end of the Aggie bullpen, the top of the lineup wasn’t able to get much going for the Longhorns on Friday as junior catcher Rylan Galvan and junior shortstop Jalin Flores both struck out twice, but the bottom three batters recorded four of the seven hits by Texas.

The Longhorns took the lead in the third inning when Farmer hit a leadoff single and freshman left fielder Adrian Rodriguez got a base hit of his own, but was thrown out at second base trying to stretch it into a double. When Duplantier came to the plate, he only had one hit in 21 conference at bats, but came through by driving an elevated 0-1 fastball from Prager into the left-center gap that short-hopped the wall to score Farmer.

Farmer jumped on a flat first-pitch breaking ball that seemed to have more carry than he or Kiel expected off the end of his bat at 95 miles per hour but with a 36-degree launch trajectory because it comfortably found the visitor’s bullpen 362 feet from home plate.

Farmer won’t have a souvenir to show for it, though, as his friend was unable to successfully retrieve the ball from the A&M bullpen.

Texas goes for the series win at 3 p.m. Central on ESPN2 with redshirt junior left-hander Luke Harrison taking the mound.