Photo Courtesy of gofrogs.cstv.com
The college baseball season is underway, and one local team is quietly making waves.
TCU began the season ranked 11th by Baseball America, the highest preseason ranking in school history. The first game of the season the Frogs showed why they were highly regarded, a 4-0 shutout of Sam Houston State in front of a crowd of 3,288, the largest opening day crowd ever at Lupton Stadium. I’ve heard that nobody cares about college baseball in the DFW area, yet Jim Schlossnagle’s squad is quickly changing that.
A trip to California opened more eyes. TCU went to perennial powerhouse Cal-State Fullerton and calmly took 2 of 3 from the 6th ranked Titans. The series win helped the Frogs climb to 7th in the polls. The Frogs are serving notice to the college baseball world that they are a team prepared to make some noise.
Leading the way is sophomore outfielder Jason Coats. The Plano native is hitting .387 with 3 homers and 18 RBI’s. Senior Matt Curry is also providing some power with a team leading 5 home runs.
The pitching’s been solid during the first half of the season. Both sophomore Kyle Winkler and junior Steven Maxwell are 3-0. Freshman sensation Matt Purke, a first round pick of the Texas Rangers, is 2-0. In his last outing, Purke threw a complete game gem against Texas Tech, giving up 4 hits and striking out 8 in the 9-1 win. After the sweep of the Red Raiders, TCU stands at 12-2 and 7-0 at home.
Last season TCU hosted a NCAA regional and took the Texas Longhorns to the limit in the super-regional series before losing to U-T in the final game. It appears they’ve taken the experience and built off of it and put themselves among college baseball’s elite.
There’s still plenty of baseball left to be played. However, TCU is showing everyone they have what it takes to be a force on the national level. At this rate, Omaha may have a Frog problem this June.
Written by DFWreporting.com contributor Chris James
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