March 30, 2003

Box Score

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Baylor's poor defense combined with Texas A&M's few clutch hits were enough to give the 23rd-ranked Aggies a 4-3 win over No. 6 Baylor Sunday afternoon.

A&M (23-9, 5-4 Big 12) managed just four hits, but five errors commited by Baylor (22-9, 6-3 Big 12) third baseman Paul Witt were too much for the Bears to overcome.

Baylor was able to grab an early lead off Aggie starter Matt Farnum. Chris Durbin led off the game with a single down the third base line, and David Murphy followed that with a triple to right-center that scored Durbin. Two batters later, Ross Bennett hit a deep sacrifice fly to right field that scored Murphy, giving Baylor a 2-0 advantage.

After a giving up a single on his first pitch of the day, Baylor starter Trey Taylor did not give up another hit through his three-plus innings of work.

The Aggies found other ways to score, however. In the fourth, Texas A&M knotted the score at 2-2 when Witt made consecutive errors and Aggie left fielder Kevin Whelan hit a sacrifice fly to left field off Bears reliever Abe Woody. Woody relieved Taylor in the fourth and retired the first eleven batters he faced.

Baylor second baseman Mark Saccomanno hit an opposite field home run over the right field wall in the fifth that gave the lead back to the Bears, 3-2. The homer was Saccomanno's second of the season

With runners on first and third in the sixth, Farnum was relieved by Scott Beerer (3-0), who kept the Bears at bay for the rest of the game, giving up no hits in three plus innings of work.

Woody got into problems in the Aggies' eighth when he plunked leadoff hitter Matt Alexander. That was followed by Witt's fifth error of the game, putting runners on first and second with no outs. After a fly out to left, Aggie center fielder Justin Ruggiano smacked a single to center that scored Alexander and the game was tied again.

Zane Carlson (1-3) relieved Woody and got the job done in the eighth. After hitting A&M's Justin Pouk, Carlson got out of the bases-loaded jam with a groundout to second.

In the ninth, Carlson surrendered a leadoff flare single to right by Whelan to start the frame. The Aggies moved Whelan to second with a sacrifice bunt and to third with a ground out. After a walk, Cory Patton slapped a 1-0 offering to center that scored Whelan with the winning run.

The Bears return home for a Tuesday night game against Texas-San Antonio. First pitch is set for 6 p.m. at Baylor Ballpark.

Notes: The series loss to A&M is Baylor's first loss to the Aggies since the 1999 season... Witt's five errors were one shy of the Baylor school record, set by Bobby Stotts against Texas A&M in 1950.