Big 12 Baseball Tournament: Frogs Beat Kansas State in Game One

The bats were hot Wednesday morning as TCU run-ruled Kansas State in the first game of the 2023 Phillips Big 12 Championship.

TCU Athletics

Despite the early start (9 am CT), the TCU bats were hot from the start. In Game One of the 2023 Phillips Big 12 Championship in Arlington, Texas, the No. 4 seed TCU Horned Frogs (34-22) defeated the No. 5 seed Kansas State Wildcats 16-3 in a run-ruled shortened game.

Cam Brown took the mound to start the game for the Frogs. He pitched 3.1 innings and threw 83 pitches and four strikeouts, giving up one hit, two runs, six walks, and one hit by pitch.

In the bottom of the first, Elijah Nunez got a leadoff walk. Karson Bowen followed with a single, advancing Nunez to third base. On the fourth pitch he faced, Brayden Taylor knocked one into the empty right field stands, giving the Frogs a 3-0 lead with no outs. This was Taylor’s 19th homer of the season and his 44th career home run. He is now tied with Royce Huffman (1996-99) for the most career runs in TCU history. His next home run will give him sole possession of the record.

‘I felt like the whole team had a sense of urgency today,” said Taylor after the game. “Everyone was on time, ready to hit. We had a good time out there.

“I was really excited,” said Bowen on Taylor’s record-tying home run. “He may not show it. It’s nice to get behind BTay. He’s been the leader here for three years.”

The Frogs would end up batting around in the first inning. Kurtis Byrne would add a 2-run homer giving the Frogs an early 5-0 lead after one.

TCU would score two or more runs in each of the first four innings. Every batter except Tre Richardson would have at least one hit. Bowen had a team-high four hits. The Frogs ended up with 17 hits and only one throwing error by Brown to first base.

Jax Traeger, who took the mound in the 4th inning, got the win for TCU. He pitched 2.2 innings and threw 63 pitches and four strikeouts while giving up one hit, one run, and four walks. Chase Hoover also saw action in the game, pitching 1.0 innings with 20 pitches, two strikeouts, one hit, no runs, and one walk.

“BP is overrated,” said head coach Kirk Saarloos after the game. “The guys came out swinging well. Our guys were prepared to play. They swung the bat really well, which gave Cam the ability to relax and get 10 quality outs, which was big. Jax Traeger, a guy who hasn’t pitched that much, came in with bases loaded and got out of it Overall, he gave us some quality innings, which is huge in a tournament.”

Next up: TCU advances to the winners’ bracket in Division One of the 2023 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship. They will play in Game 7 on Thursday at 4 pm CT against the winner of Wednesday’s Texas versus Kansas game.

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