Behind Jake Arrieta – and with the help of some shaky Central Florida outfield defense – the Horned Frogs beat preseason third-team All-American Tim Bascom and the Golden Knights 2-1 Friday night at Lupton Stadium.Arrieta, a sophomore right-hander, pitched seven innings, allowing only one early run, while giving up seven hits, striking out nine and walking one.
“Everything was going after that first inning,” said Arrieta, who improved to 5-2 on the season. “After that, I just got on a role.”
TCU head coach Jim Schlossnagle said Arrieta, who lost his last two starts, had success against the Knights because he kept the ball down, something he hadn’t done in his losses.
“He got his fastball down in the strike zone, which he hasn’t had for two games – plus his slider.” Schlossnagle said.
“He battled through some things and made some pitches with runners in scoring position.”
TCU fell behind in the first, but evened the score in fifth after Central Florida left fielder Ryan Williams dropped a routine fly ball off the bat of TCU shortstop Bryan Kervin for a two-base error to lead off the inning.
After a sacrifice bunt by first baseman Steven Trout and a strikeout by left fielder Chad Huffman, third baseman Matt Carpenter came through with two outs and two strikes, driving a hanging curve ball into right field for a double to drive in Kervin.
Carpenter’s double came at a key time for the Frogs, who have been struggling to cash in on opportunities of late and had already failed to drive in runners who reached scoring position with no outs in the second and fourth.
“We could easily be sitting here talking about what cost us the game, which was we had three opportunities – with runners on third base and less than two outs – to score them and we didn’t,” Schlossnagle said. “But we did have one big hit by Carpenter which I thought took some pressure off. I thought we had really competitive bats against their pitcher.”
With two strikes and facing a pitcher of Bascom’s quality, Carpenter said, he just looked to make contact but Bascom threw him a pitch he could handle.
“Luckily he left the ball up and I just got a good swing on it,” Carpenter said.
Another blunder in the Central Florida outfield – this time by right fielder Dave DiNatale – cost the Golden Knights in the sixth and led to Bascom’s exit.
TCU catcher Andrew Walker led off the inning with a drive into the right field corner that off the bat, looked like it would be the first out of the inning. But after getting a late break on the ball, DiNatale attempted to swat at the ball and missed, and Walker reached third with a triple. Center fielder Ryan Pack drove him in two batters later with a sacrifice fly into left.
Bascom, who clearly lost something in the sixth, got into more trouble after Pack’s sacrifice and was bailed out of a jam by right-handed reliever Derek Abriola. Bascom gave up two runs, one earned, in 5 1/3 innings, allowing six hits while walking two and striking out seven.
“Any guy who throws his curveball for as many strikes as this guy did is pretty tough to hit,” Carpenter said. “As a team, we did a real good job competing with him. We got to him early – fouling off some of his pitches – you could tell it kind of got him fr?ustrated and he started getting a little wild. Once we started competing with him, we got a couple breaks and ended up winning the game because of it.”
Right-hander Sam Demel, one of TCU’s top starting pitchers, came on with one out and a runner on second in the eighth and struck out four of the five batters he faced to record his first save of the season.
Schlossnagle said Demel could continue to see action in both the closer’s role and as a starter as the season winds on.
The Frogs moved to 12-12 with the win and Central Florida fell to 14-11.
Schlossnagle said he hopes the win will help the Frogs, who have been pressing of late, to loosen up and play more consistent baseball.
“We’re struggling playing relaxed right now,” Schlossnagle said. “Hopefully, this one will relax us because we beat a real good pitching staff.