Did I mention Rice beat Texas State something like 14-2 on Tuesday afternoon? The game was pretty quick. Few walks. Rice got our early and scored in every inning but one.

On Wednesday night Rice beat Texas Southern 16-9. That one took much longer, not because of the score. It was because each team had seven pitchers, there were about 10 hit batsmen during the game and quite a few walks on both sides. Rice fielded a bit better than TSU but Rice had their share of mistakes. Only TSU had errors, two of them on tough chances for the 3B. At least one of them could have been ruled a hit and no one would have minded. But they at times looked ragged in the field.

The scoring started slowly. TSU starter gave up only one run for three innings. Then they took the starter out and Rice went to town. Some of it was being patient and taking the walk. Meanwhile Rice starter J. T. Chargois did not give up any runs and left after five innings. Chargois did not look terribly dominate but he and his teammates managed to find a way keep runners from scoring. There was a pickoff at second base and a caught stealing in there. Rice scored their only run off the starter: with two outs, men on first and third, the runner on first attempted a steal of second but when the throw was made the runner stopped and the runner on third was able to score before the runner from first was tagged out in a run down. Cute. Rice tried it later again but this time TSU was ready and threw out the runner at home catcher to 2B to catcher. That too was a nice play.

Rice was ahead 14-0 when TSU scored five in the 8th. Several pitchers were ineffective giving up hits and walks. Rice got two back in the bottom of the 8th. Then Matt Evers was allowed to start the 9th. The crowd groaned. Was the 16-5 lead big enough for Evers? Bless his heart Evers just has not been effective for about two years now. Apparently the answer was no as he allowed the three batters he faced to reach and he was taken out. Tyler Duffey was finally brought in to finish. It was not a save situation but coach was nervous. We all were. Duffey gave up a long three run home run to cap the four run inning for TSU but then did get the final outs. One was a line drive snared by Rendon, a very nice play.

Rice had three non-standard DP's in this game. Two were line drive, catch the runner off base plays. I cannot remember what happened on the other one. Maybe it was a like DP played against Rice.

Rice has three games this weekend. With the game Tuesday that is five games in six days. Rice coaches were trying to get through these first two games with backup, less used pitchers. It worked out fine. Aside from Duffey all the pitchers were guys who needed work and were trying to show the coaches they deserved to play in more important games.