TCU Baseball matches up with its first ranked team of the season in #20 UCLA. The 4-3 Frogs win was capped off by Kurtis Byrne’s 3 hit evening including a 2-run homer in the second. That was his first home run of the season.
Brody Green went 2-3 with a solo homer run of his own.
Payton Tolle started his second game of the season and gets the win (1-0). He is the only TCU pitcher to make it to 5 innings at this point of the season. He had 7 strikeouts on the night to add to the 7 he had in his first outing. That is 14 total strikeouts in 8 innings for Tolle.
Kyle Ayers picked up Tolle in the 6th followed by Zach Cawyer and Ben Abeldt. Abeldt recorded a 6-out save with one of the Bruins facing 14 pitches in the 9th.
Head coach, Kirk Saarloos talked about his teams pitching performance and the difference was retiring the lead-off batter. Saarloos stated that 18 of the 36 innings last week resulted in the lead-off batter reaching base.
The #5 Frogs (5-0, 0-0) will play 8 games in the next 10 days but their focus is the next game, which is Game 2, against UCLA, Saturday afternoon at 4pm at Lupton.
