For the Texas Tech baseball team, their honeymoon phase with Omaha is over.
“We all got a trophy that’s about ye big, which is a replica of the national championship trophy, but the biggest part of it is it says participant,” Texas Tech’s sophomore pitcher Davis Martin said.
Just making the trip doesn’t get the juices flowing like it used to when you don’t come back with the trophy.
“We are kind of tired of just going,” Texas Tech senior infielder Ryan Long said.
“You kind of have to respect the fact that you went to the college world series and a lot of teams don’t get to do that, but being there is kind of over with,” Martin said.
“There was a sincere disappointment in that locker room last year,” Texas Tech head coach Tim Tadlock said. “That group could really see what was in front of them.”
However, the journey back will be with plenty of new faces after Texas Tech sent a school record tean players to the draft following last season. But with the return of Davis Martin, Steven Gingery and Erikson Lanning, it seems as though the Red Raider baseball team has their entire weekend rotation in place. But with the departure of Eric Gutierrez and Stephen Smith, the Red Raiders lost a lot of power at the plate, and maybe the biggest question mark heading into 2017.
“When you had Gute, and Raley, and Smith and Neslony and all those guys, you knew they were going to score seven or eight runs a game, as a pitcher you are really relaxed,” Martin said. “This year hopefully we can take some of that burden off our hitting, but I think our hitting is going to surprise some people.”
“Any time you return guys like Davis, Gingery, Shetter, Parker and Patterson, they’ve all thrown some innings,” Tadlock said. “But we like our team in several phases.”
And if all else fails, maybe the lowering of the fences in right and left field will help save their bacon.
“Coach Hayward had a deal going for a few years there to keep it higher,” Tadlock said.
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