After losing six straight games, three of which were run rules, it appeared Texas State baseball was at rock bottom. Luckily for the Bobcats, the only place to go from rock bottom is up.
While there have been some speed bumps for Texas State baseball in the last couple of weeks, the program appears to be on an upward trend. A series sweep over Arkansas State and the annual road win over Texas showed the team still has plenty of fight left.
Here are three takeaways from the Bobcats’ last two weeks:
Confusing team, no way around it
“When we play our brand of baseball at a high level, we can beat anybody,” Texas State head coach Steven Trout said after his squad went on the road and beat the #5 ranked Longhorns for the fourth consecutive year.
Trout’s right. When the Bobcats play good baseball, they can legitimately compete with any team in the nation. That’s what makes their 13-15 record all the more frustrating for fans.
Texas State played quality baseball all weekend against Arkansas State en route to sweeping the Red Wolves. Then they came out and laid an egg against UTSA, where the 12-9 final score didn’t exactly represent how much UTSA outplayed the Bobcats.
A big series against Coastal Carolina saw the Bobcats get thoroughly beaten twice but also shut out the Chanticleers 1-0. Then the Bobcats came out in their next midweek game and won in Austin for the fourth straight time.
All of this to say, good teams win baseball games, great teams consistently win baseball games. Texas State appears to have the tools to win; finding consistency is what comes next.
Win over Texas a season changer?
In what has been the biggest win of the season to date, Texas State went into Disch-Falk Field and beat the Longhorns again. Earlier in the season, the Bobcats went on the road and beat the then-No. 1 team in the country, the Aggies.
As it turns out, the win over A&M doesn’t mean quite as much as it did when it happened, as both the Bobcats and Aggies entered a bit of a tailspin since that point. But the win over Texas has a different feel to it.
Contrary to the Aggies at the time, The Longhorns are battle-tested, and everyone knows just how good they are. The No. 5 team in the nation is 23-4 and 8-1 in the SEC with a series victory over another top 10 team in LSU. So there’s no denying the Bobcats went on the road and beat a really good team.
A win like that, when the Bobcats desperately needed it, could be the season-changing win Trout and his squad have been looking for. There’s no understating how massive a win like the one over Texas could be for the club’s confidence and momentum. It’s up to the guys in the clubhouse to capitalize on it now.
Critical stretch coming up
If there was ever a time for Texas State baseball to use momentum to carry them through their next stretch of games, it’s now.
The Bobcats have upcoming Sun Belt series with Louisiana and Southern Mississippi and a rematch with Baylor in Waco. Not an easy run of games by any stretch of the imagination. Southern Miss is currently ranked #13, Louisiana is talented and always finds ways to give the Bobcats trouble, and Baylor embarrassed the Bobcats in San Marcos when the teams first met a couple weeks ago.
How Texas State plays these next two conference series will be crucial to how the rest of the season will shape up. Winning a series against two of the better teams in the Sun Belt won’t only be huge for confidence but for end-of-season conference rankings when the tournament rolls around. While midweeks don’t hold the same weight as conference play, the Bobcats should be out for revenge when they roll into Waco, as they cannot afford a repeat of what happened against Baylor in their first matchup.
