May 25, 2005
Box Score
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. - Paul Witt slapped a one-out, bases-loaded single down the left-field line to push across Josh Ford with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning as No. 13 Baylor opened the Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Tournament with a 2-1 victory over Kansas. Baylor (37-20) snapped a two-game losing streak with the win and has still not lost three consecutive games this year. Kansas (36-27) has lost eight straight against Baylor, dating back to the 2003 season and including four meetings this season.
Ford led off the bottom of the 10th with a double off the warning track in left-center. Zach Dillon followed with a single through the left side. After a Kevin Sevigny strikeout and an intentional walk of Seth Fortenberry, Witt picked up his first hit of the day, a single that landed two feet fair down the line in left.
That gave Baylor its ninth last-at-bat victory of the season, the fourth against Big 12 teams and second against Kansas. The Bears improve to 11-6 in one-run games this season and 6-3 in first-round games all-time at the Big 12 Tournament, including wins in each of the past three tournaments.
The game did not start on a positive note for Baylor, the tournament's second seed. On the game's 10th pitch, starter Mark McCormick took an A.J. Van Slyke liner off the base of his right (throwing hand) thumb. McCormick, a first-team All-Big 12 selection after going 6-1 in league play this season, tried to remain in the game but two warm-up pitches sailed to the backstop.
However, Ryan LaMotta entered the game and pitched 8.1 innings of shutout ball to keep the Bears in the game. After Van Slyke scored on a Gus Milner RBI single, LaMotta allowed only three hits through the ninth inning with one walk and a career-high eight strikeouts. LaMotta now in 19.0 career innings at the Big 12 Tournament has posted a 1.42 ERA, allowing three earned runs on nine hits and five walks with 16 strikeouts.
Abe Woody (8-3) pitched the ninth, allowing only one walk, with a strikeout to earn his staff-leading eighth victory.
Fortenberry's intentional walk in the bottom of the 10th capped one of the best games of his career. With the Bears trailing 1-0 in the second, the junior outfielder homered into the Kansas bullpen in right-center. In the fifth, he laced a one-out triple down the line in right, and he sent Milner to the warning track in right on an eighth-inning fly out. Fortenberry had Baylor's only two hits of the game and was the Bears' lone base runner until a Chase Gerdes two-out single in the eighth.
Kansas Kodiak Quick was saddled with the tough-luck loss; he allowed two runs on five hits and no walks with eight strikeouts in 9.0-plus innings, facing two batters in the 10th. Quick (10-6) also suffered a tough-luck loss against Baylor in the teams' series finale last month at Lawrence. In that game, Quick held Baylor to one run on four hits through the first eight innings before seeing the Bears rally for two runs and the win in the ninth. Don Czyz, who issued two wild pitches that led to both runs in the game at Lawrence, allowed Witt's game-winner Wednesday.
Baylor advances to a Thursday winner's-bracket meeting with sixth-seeded Oklahoma State. The Bears and the Cowboys meet at 5 p.m. CDT at SBC Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City. Baylor sends southpaw Trey Taylor (5-5, 3.62 ERA) to the mound. Oklahoma State has not yet determined a starter.
NOTES: Baylor leads the all-time series 29-3, including a 2-0 advantage in games played at neutral sites. The Bears are 21-3 against the Jayhawks since the inception of the Big 12 in 1997 and 24-3 against Kansas under head coach Steve Smith. ... Baylor improves to 2-1 on Wednesday, 4-0 in neutral site games, 9-16 when the opponent scores first and 5-6 when the opponent scores in the first inning. .... Wednesday was Baylor's eighth win this season when trailing or tied after eight innings. ... Baylor improves to 24-4 when allowing three or fewer runs, 16-2 when allowing two or fewer runs and 10-0 when allowing one run or less. ... Fortenberry's home run was his third of the season and fourth of his career; it was his first career home run against someone other than Texas Tech. ... Ford extended his hitting streak to 10 games, his second streak this season of at least 10 games. No other Bear has a streak longer than nine games this season. ... Ford has reached base safely in 14 consecutive games. He also has reached safely in 51 of his last 52 games and in 55 of Baylor's 57 games this season. ... Gerdes also extended his hitting streak to five games, tying his career long. ... LaMotta's outing tied his longest career outing and was the longest relief appearance of his career. He went 8.1 innings in a start against Southern Mississippi in the championship game of the 2003 Hattiesburg Regional. ... Wednesday was Baylor's shortest extra-inning game (two hours, 15 minutes) since Feb. 2, 1996, when the Bears lost 5-4 at Northwestern State in a 10-inning game that took two hours, nine minutes to play.
