TCU Baseball Beats Manhattan
{fshare id=2512}
FORT WORTH, Texas – TCU jumped out to a 6-1 lead after two innings and never looked back en route to a 12-5 series-clinching victory over Manhattan Saturday afternoon. Josh Elander and Jason Coats combined to drive in seven runs.
Andrew Mitchell went 3 2/3 innings, giving up four runs on four hits. He walked three and struck out three in the no decision. Travis Evans (1-0) earned his first career win, giving up a run on two hits in 2 1/3 innings. He walked one and struck out three. Tyler Duffie pitched two scoreless innings with a hit and a strikeout. Jerrick Suiter gave up a hit and a walk in his lone inning of work.
A two-out walk to Kyle Murphy came back to haunt the Frogs as Ramon Ortega doubled to give the Jaspers an early 1-0 lead. Mitchell worked out of the jam as he got Joe McClennan to foul out to end the inning.
TCU answered in the bottom of the inning, taking a 2-1 lead. Kyle Von Tungeln got things started with a single to right field. A balk moved him to second and he scored easily on a double off the bat of Elander. Coats followed with a double to put the Frogs in front.
Four more runs crossed the plate in the second as TCU opened up a 6-1 lead. Derek Odell got the inning started with a walk. Keaton Jones reached on an infield single and a misplay at short put runners on the corners with nobody out. Von Tungeln made it a 3-1 game with a bunt single. With two on and one out, the Frogs executed a double steal. An error allowed Von Tungeln to race home for a 4-1 lead. RBI singles from Coats and Witte followed to push the lead to five, 6-1.
With two outs in the fourth inning, six straight Jaspers reached base and three of them came around to score. Mitchell hit Brenden Slattery to start the Jasper rally and he scored on a base hit by Yoandry Galan. A bases loaded walk and a hit batter plated the other two runs before Brett Johnson corralled a line drive to end the inning with the Frogs leading 6-4.
TCU broke the game open in the fifth inning as it pushed the lead to 10-4 with four runs on four hits. Back-to-back walks to Jones and Von Tungeln scored on a blast over the left field fence by Elander. Coats and Witte smoked back-to-back doubles to round out the scoring in the inning.
The teams traded runs in the sixth inning to push the score to 11-5. Manhattan’s Nick Camastro singled in a run with two outs and TCU’s Jones doubled down the left field line to score Odell all the way from first.
Coats capped the game’s score with a run scoring double in the eighth inning.
TCU improves to 25-15 on the season. The Frogs will go for the sweep Sunday afternoon. First pitch is slated for 1 p.m. Stefan Crichton will take the mound for TCU and face the Jasper’s Michael Martin.
