The Lobos showed no mercy to the Red Raiders in Tuesday’s matinee duel.
The UNM baseball team played Texas Tech at Isotopes Park, sealing the deal with one big inning.
Tech’s sunny day was ruined by a six-hit, nine-run fifth inning by UNM and resulted in a 16-8 Lobo victory.
The Lobos added four runs in the bottom of the seventh, and Rafael Neda hit a stand-up double to score two runs and UNM added two more with a Red Raider error on pitcher Justin Cooper to extend a 12-3 lead in the eighth inning.
“I like to have a team that you never know who is going to be your poison that day, and that has happened every day this year,” said UNM head coach Ray Birmingham. “Everybody here on this team has hit and they work at it. But I demand that they do it the right way.”
In the fifth inning, the first four batters for UNM Justin Howard, Ryan Honeycutt, Neda and Cameron Smith produced a bases-loaded situation.
Honeycutt hit a liner to centerfielder Taylor Ashby for the first out of the inning.
The next batter, John Michael Twichell was walked by Red Raider relief pitcher Ben Flora and scored Howard.
Texas Tech wouldn’t put another UNM batter out for another 30 minutes.
But, in the next at bat, Max Willett hit a line-drive single to center field and scored Neda and Smith.
The Lobos would add six more runs before the second out of the inning.
Willett said it was just one of those days for the UNM offense.
“We hit phenomenally, and I wish that I could have got a couple more hits,” Willett said. “But I guess that is the way it goes sometimes, when you’re hitting the ball right at (the defense). Obviously we hit the ball well, and sometimes you just need one of those big innings to bust the game wide open, and that is what we did today, and hopefully we can just keep doing it.”
Two Lobos have kept the bats alive and well. Howard and Neda combined for seven hits at ten at-bats for six RBIs.
Rudy Jaramillo, who started the game for UNM, pitched five innings and gave up only three earned runs on five Texas Tech hits.
Jaramillo is now 3-1 on the season.
Birmingham said that Jaramillo’s pitching performance was stellar, especially against a very potent Texas Tech offense.
“Rudy pitched his tail off and I thought that he did a great job,” Birmingham said.
UNM improves to 28-14 on the season, while the TTU drops to 24-21.
Even though the game versus the Red Raiders was in the middle of the week, Birmingham said that his players should still be up for the challenge against an opponent from one of the big-six conferences.
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“If you have a tough time focusing to play baseball, then you need to bring your uniform to me and get out of here,” he said. “It’s a mental thing and it’s about guts. I have been preaching it and finally some guys are starting to get it.”
*Baseball at San Diego State
Friday, Saturday and Sunday
San Diego, Calif.
*
