Texas baseball looking for confidence-boosting performances from all three phases as Big 12 Tournament begins

The No. 24 Texas Longhorns begin their postseason journey Tuesday night as the No. 3 seed in the program’s final Big 12 Tournament. David Pierce’s club (35-20, 20-10 Big 12) is safely in the postseason but hosting a regional in the NCAA Tournament is out of reach due to a number of losses against lower-quality teams on the schedule.

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First-round opponent Texas Tech is in a different situation as the Red Raiders (31-24, 12-18 Big 12) limp into the conference tournament needing to win it in order to make the postseason. Texas took two-of-three from the Red Raiders in Lubbock earlier in the year in a run-filled weekend.

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An opportunity at one of the five championships Texas sets out to take home every year sits in front of the Longhorns, but so too does the chance to keep momentum built up through winning 9-of-10 conference series. Along the way, Pierce’s team has an opportunity to prove its mettle in all three aspects of the game in a postseason environment the likes of which they’ll see when they travel to a regional site.

The Big 12 Tournament is one of the titles Pierce lacks during his time at Texas. He is club reached the finals in 2017 and 2022 and the semifinals in 2021. Texas was two-and-‘cue in 2018 and in 2023, both years the Longhorns captured the No. 1 seed and the conference’s regular season title. Texas missed the Big 12 Tournament entirely in 2019. No tournament was held in 2020.

So too does Pierce lack success at Globe Life Field in Arlington. Along with conference tournament struggles, the home of the Texas Rangers has been the site of difficult defeats for Texas since it opened in 2020.

Texas’ offense has been its strength this season and they hope to make those past displeasures at the home of defending World Series champions disappear. Led by Big 12 player of the year Max Belyeu, Texas is hitting .290 as a team and is No. 2 in the nation in slugging percentage at .533. Part of that slugging percentage is a total of 106 home runs, good for No. 12 in the nation and No. 1 in the league.

To advance in the tournament and prepare for the tournament, the Longhorns will need regular contributions from its lineup. But what would bolster UT’s momentum entering Pierce’s sixth NCAA appearance in seven seasons in Austin is a postseason performance from the Texas pitching staff.

That starts Tuesday night with a start from Ace Whitehead. Typically the Longhorns’ Saturday starter, Whitehead was limited during the final series against Kansas in preparation for a Tuesday start in Arlington. At 4-1 with a 4.07 ERA, Whitehead helped stabilize the Texas season especially after the Horns lost game one after game one in conference series.

Fellow starters Max Grubbs and Lebarron Johnson Jr. are the candidates to hear their names called after Whitehead. Grubbs has been mostly steady this year while Johnson put together one of his best starts of the second half of the season Saturday against Kansas.

The output that comes from that trio is mostly known. What may determine Texas’ fortunes not just in the Big 12 Tournament but further down the road is how the bullpen fares in these pressure-packed situations.

Gage Boehm leads the way after he earned first-team All-Big 12 honors with a 0.99 WHIP across 46.1 innings. He’s second in appearances only to Andre Duplantier II, who became one of Texas’ go-to arms over the final stretch of games. In 5.1 innings across six appearances in the month of May, Duplantier II has allowed only two earned runs and walked just two.

Following Boehm and Duplantier II, there exists an opportunity for others to raise the floor of where Texas could end up in the postseason. But the names that follow also are the ones that have been on the receiving end of defeats as part of poor outings.

Charlie Hurley, coming off a strong spot-start against Kansas, will be an early option out of the bullpen. So too will players like Easton Tumis, Chase Lummus, David Shaw, and others from a group who have been consistent in their inconsistency. As it has for much of the season, Texas’ fortunes could depend on whether or not some of those latter names are able to get outs.

Those fortunes will have a small say in determining where the Longhorns go for the postseason. Because of eight Quadrant 4 losses, mostly defeats suffered at the hands at home to teams ranked No. 101 or higher in RPI, postseason play following the 50th season at UFCU Disch-Falk Field is highly unlikely. Those eight losses are the most among teams ranked in the top-40 of RPI.

As a result, the Longhorns were projected to head to No. 5 Arkansas and the Fayetteville region as a two-seed along with three-seed Troy and four-seed St. Louis by D1Baseball in its most recent projections.

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The chance to possibly improve that standing starts at Globe Life Field on Tuesday night. Within that chance are opportunities for some of the pitchers Texas will need to perform to advance in the postseason to earn Pierce’s trust in high-leverage situations.