TCU Baseball: Frogs Drop Game 1 in Cincinnati

A big 6th inning for the Bearcats does the job against a struggling TCU offense.

By Carson Wersal

TCU Baseball Twitter/X

TCU dropped Game 1 of a 3-game series against Cincinnati on Friday with a score of 4-2. TCU got the lead early off of a Chase Brunson double off the wall, while Luke Boyers homered in the 9th inning to give the Frogs some life. Cincinnati, on the other hand, scored all of its runs via one big inning, plating four in the 6th. With the Frogs' inconsistent offensive production, the 4-spot was more than enough for the Bearcats to secure the win.

Believe it or not, Payton Tolle is mortal. The lefty looked good to start the game throwing 5.0 scoreless innings racking up six strikeouts. However, he ran into trouble in the 6th inning when the Bearcats finally caught up to his fastball, singling three times and walking twice. Ben Abeldt was the first Frog out of the pen to relieve Tolle and let one more cross the plate but ended the disastrous inning, nonetheless. Zack Morris finished the game for the Frogs tallying 1.1 innings with only one hit.

Brenden Garula shut down the Frohs for almost the first four innings yesterday, pitching 3.2 innings with 1 H, 0 R, and two strikeouts. Seth Logue then came in relief, pitching 5.1 innings, allowing 7 H, 2 R, and striking out 6. While the younger guys saw Logue with ease, the heart of the lineup couldn't get any traction at any point in the game. Garula has a 1.84 ERA on the season, so it's no surprise that he pitched well against the Frogs.

While TCU can still win the series, it may be a battle of which coach times their pitching changes better from here on out. With TCU's injuries, Coach Saarloos will have to use all his tools to navigate the big innings TCU seems to have every game.

TCU is back in action on Saturday in Cincinnati where they look to even the series today at 1:00 p.m. Coach Saarloos could throw either Kole Klecker or Louis Rodriguez, seeing as they've had more time to recover from last weekend's early start.

Want to join the discussion? Click here to become a member of the Killer Frogs message board community today!

Follow KillerFrogs on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest TCU news! Follow KillerFrogs on Facebook and Instagram as well. Download the KillerFrogs app on Google Play or in the Apple App Store.