April 12, 2010
IRVING, Texas - Logan Verrett has been named Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Pitcher of the Week for games played during the week of April 5-11, in voting by a panel of media covering the conference.
Verrett's 13 strikeouts in Saturday's 13-1 win over Texas A&M were the most ever by a Baylor pitcher in a game at Baylor Ballpark. His strikeout total was also the most by a Baylor pitcher in a regular season game since Jason Jennings struck out 14 Kansas batters in 1999.
Baylor's 12-run win was its largest in the 266-game history of the Battle of the Brazos series that dates back to 1904. Verrett's performance helped save the bullpen for Sunday's finale, and the Bears used three relievers to win 2-1 and take the series for the first time since 2006.
The Corpus Christi, Texas native held the 23rd-ranked Aggies scoreless on two hits through the first seven innings, and he didn't allow any Texas A&M baserunner to reach third base until the Aggies broke up the shutout with back-to-back doubles with one out in the eighth.
Verrett finished the game as strong as he started it, striking out the first two and last two batters the Aggies sent to the plate. He issued just two walks and only faced more than four batters in an inning one time, when he faced five in the eighth.
"The toughest decision I had was whether or not to let him finish the game," Head coach Steve Smith said. "He was so strong at the end that it is so hard to go and take a guy out of the game like that when he is trying to learn how to finish something. I think he learned how to do that."
It was the first time a Baylor pitcher earned a win in a 9.0-inning complete game since Shawn Tolleson pitched a four-hit shutout against Kansas State on April 13, 2008.
The last 12 of Verrett's strikeouts were all swinging, and he allowed Texas A&M to hit the ball out of the infield just six times in the game.
It was the sophomore's second complete game of the season. He held Oral Roberts to two runs in a 7.0-inning complete game on March 6.
Verrett joins Shawn Tolleson, who earned co-Pitcher-of-the-Week honors after the season's first weekend, and Raynor Campbell, who picked up the Player of the Week award on March 8, as the three Baylor players to earn the conference's weekly awards this season.
The Bears return to action with a home-and-home series against UT Arlington on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday's game is in Arlington, and the teams meet on Wednesday at Baylor Ballpark. Both games are slated for 6:30 p.m.
