Concern over the No. 1 starter for the Longhorns escalated over the weekend after only throwing 43 pitches against the Tigers.
When Texas Longhorns starting pitcher Jared Spencer left Thursday’s 3-2 win over the then-No. 8 Auburn Tigers after 2.2 innings and 43 pitches, head coach Jim Schlossnagle wasn’t especially concerned about his staff ace.
“I think he’ll be fine. We’ll have some people look at him tomorrow, obviously we’ll handle him with kid gloves,” Schlossnagle said after the game.
Pitching on short rest with the series against the Tigers starting on Thursday because of Easter weekend, Spencer gave the coaching staff positive feedback during his pre-game bullpen, but the typical fastball velocity for the Indiana State transfer wasn’t there — normally at 94 to 97 miles per hour, Spencer’s fastball was sitting at 92 on a home run he allowed in the third inning. When the next fastball from Spencer was 91, Schlossnagle and pitching coach Max Weiner removed him from the game.
“He was just a little sore, so hopefully it’s nothing. I think the beauty of us getting him out of there on a Thursday, you know, we got plenty of time to rest him, even if we had to bump him back to the back end of next weekend or skip a start, we’re 14-2 in the league,” Schlossnagle said.
Texas had considered moving Spencer’s start to keep his normal rest, but opted against it.
“We definitely talked about it a little bit, but we were going to leave it up to Jared because we trust him and and if he would have said anything at all remotely not good, we would have done something different,” Schlossnagle said.
By Saturday, however, Schlossnagle was more concerned about his starting pitcher in the midst of a battery of tests to determine the cause of his discomfort and decreased velocity, limiting third starter Ruger Riojas to 38 pitches over three innings in anticipation of an adjusted rotation when the Aggies come to Austin next weekend.
“We won’t know what’s going on with Jared for a while. I can’t envision him pitching next weekend, so we wanted to have options for Friday and Saturday and since we have a little bit extra time, then we can make those choices. But if we left him out there for a while, then we wouldn’t have many choices,” Schlossnagle said.
A full-time starter for the first time in his career, Spencer has been a revelation for the Longhorns this season at 4-1 with a 3.27 ERA, a 1.22 WHIP, and 66 strikeouts in 52.1 innings over 10 starts. Opponents are only batting .215 against the 6’3, 210-pounder.
Just as importantly as Spencer goes through the process of determining the extent of his injury, he’s maintaining the same upbeat aptitude that defines him as a player.
“He’s fine. He comes to the field every day being the same person, so you can’t even really tell if he’s sad or anything, so I think that’s really good, that’s one thing I can pick up from him. It’s pretty cool,” said right-hander Jason Flores.