Final Stats

THE RUNDOWN
FORT WORTH, Texas - Baylor (6-11, 0-2) lost a 3-2 decision to No. 4 TCU (13-2, 2-0) Saturday afternoon at Lupton Stadium to drop its Big 12 opening series. The Bears were unable to hold onto an early 2-0 lead as the Horned Frogs scored three runs in the sixth and seventh innings.

The Bears jumped out to the start they needed as Logan Brown led off with an HBP and Darryn Sheppard followed with a double. Cameron Miller then came through with a two-strike RBI single to right, and two outs later, Jonathan Ducoff also had a two-strike RBI single.

It looked as if the runs would be enough for BU starter Daniel Castano, who put up five straight zeroes and retired seven straight batters until Cody Jones led off the sixth with a double. But the Horned Frogs were able to scratch and claw three runs off him to take the lead.

After Jones' double, he was driven in by Garrett Crain on a single following a sac bunt. A wild pitch and single later, Dane Steinhagen tied the game with a single before Castano escaped.

In the seventh, Nolan Brown led off with a single and Jones had a one-out walk before Nick Lewis came in to relieve Castano. Unfortunately, his first pitch was wild to put both runners in scoring position but the batter, Keaton Jones, walked to load the bases. After getting Crain to pop out, Lewis induced a weak grounder off the bat of Steinhagen but Matt Menard was called for catcher's interference to allow the go-ahead run to score before the at-bat ended in another pop up.

The Bears had a chance in the eighth after Brown walked with one out but he was stranded following TCU's pitching change from starter Preston Morrison to reliever Trey Teakell.

Morrison (4-0) earned the win after allowing two runs on five hits and one walk with nine strikeouts in 7.1 innings while Riley Ferrell struck out the side in the ninth for his seventh save. Castano (0-3) took his second straight hard-luck loss, surrendering three runs on seven hits and two walks with four strikeouts in 6.1 innings.

NOTES
*Baylor is 30-32 against ranked teams since 2011 and 3-5 this season.

*Baylor is 56-142 all-time on the road against Baseball America ranked teams, 192-284-1 overall since 1981, and 0-5 this season.

*Baylor is 43-78 all-time against top five ranked teams by Baseball America, and 0-3 this year (No. 2 LSU) - the last time the Bears beat a top five team was March 9, 2014, vs. No. 4 Cal State Fullerton in Waco.

*In Big 12 opening series, Baylor is 13-6 and had won its last three. The last league opening series lost for BU came March 18-20, 2011, against Texas Tech.

*Baylor is 7-12 in Big 12 road opening three-game series. BU's last road opening three-game series win was April 5-7, 2012, at Missouri (sweep).

*Baylor has lost nine straight games for the first time since April 1-12, 1994, which was Mickey Sullivan's final season before Steve Smith took over as BU head coach.

*Baylor leads the all-time series against TCU 139-118 but trails 56-52 in Fort Worth and 20-30 under Steve Smith.

*Baylor owns a 488-551-4 record against the current members of the Big 12 Conference and a 268-211 all-time record in regular season play.

*Baylor is 220-146 in March under Steve Smith and 0-6 this season.

*Logan Brown has reached base in his last seven games.

*Darryn Sheppard had his team-leading sixth double.

*Freshman Levi Gilcrease had his second career multi-hit game.

STAT OF THE GAME
2 - The amount of runs that TCU's Preston Morrison had given up prior to the game and the amount of runs Baylor scored on him in the first six plate appearances of the game.

QUOTE OF THE GAME
"We had some really good, competitive at-bats; we didn't do many things wrong in this ballgame. We made really tough defensive plays. They got a couple seeing-eye singles that got through to tie the game and Matt [Menard] got too close on the catcher's interference. That's part hitter, part catcher there - hitter's with long swings get those calls, and we've had a few guys do that for us in the past. It's just something that happens, and it doesn't happen much, just happened at an inopportune time today." - Baylor head coach Steve Smith

WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor and TCU finish their Big 12 opening series tomorrow at 1 p.m. CT on FOX Sports Southwest. The scheduled pitching matchup for Sunday is BU RHP Austin Stone (0-1, 4.63 ERA) vs. TCU LHP Alex Young (3-0, 1.29 ERA).