How can Tech baseball get out of slump?
RUSTON — Louisiana Tech was one of the hottest teams in the country last month, racing out to a 15-2 record as part of the best start in program history.
By Monday, the Bulldogs' head coach and two of their star players spent about a half hour explaining how they hope to get out of a slump that's plagued them for the better part of three weeks.
The once promising start has been overshadowed to some extent with eight losses in the last 11 games and a 2-7 mark in Conference USA at the halfway mark of a marathon 56-game season.
"Right now when we're struggling, everything is under a microscope. What I mean by that is if you make a mistake or you make an error, it's just magnified tremendously because we are struggling," Tech coach Lane Burroughs said Monday following a series loss to UTSA over the weekend.
"We got guys swinging, they're trying to hit three-run home homers with nobody on base. I think too many guys are looking at the big picture and down the road and we gotta do this to get here and do this. Really all we have to do is win an inning at a time and have to slow the game down and keep things in perspective and look at the small picture of being 1-0 after tomorrow."
With 28 games down and 28 to play, Tech (18-10, 2-7) is attempting to turn the page starting Tuesday with a home game against Stephen F. Austin. Then comes an eight-game road trip against the likes of McNeese State, Rice and Old Dominion.
But first, Tech needs to figure out how to reclaim the same magic that helped the Bulldogs make the NCAA Tournament in 2016.
Star pitcher Nate Harris, who threw complete game shutout this past Saturday to avoid the sweep against UTSA, said pitching is "going to have to turn around for us."
Tech's team ERA hovered around 3.0 before a series with Southern Miss started the slide. Since then, it has ballooned up to 4.24. Tech has allowed 6.6 runs the past 11 games, including an average of 7.8 in the eight losses.
Too many times, especially at home, Tech has allowed the opposition to jump out to a lead. The bullpen has improved in areas, but the starting pitching isn't consistent. Burroughs mentioned Monday how Tech is feeling the effects of losing three pitchers to the MLB Draft, most notably Friday night starter Phil Diehl, who is now playing minor league baseball for the Yankees.
The Bulldogs are hitting nearly .300 as a team and averaging more than seven runs per game, but it's hard to rely on winning games playing from behind and trying to outscore teams.
"We have the ability to rip off 15 games in a row. We can do that. All we need is good starting pitching," Burroughs said.
"I look for us to go on a run here, I really do."
Harris will move from his closer role to a weekend spot in the rotation. It's unclear if he'll take the ball Friday at Rice after throwing more than 100 pitches in his first career start. Burroughs mentioned how Kent Hasler, who has started Friday's for the Bulldogs, and Matt Miller could take over at closer, or it could be by committee.
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Catcher Brent Diaz, who leads the team with a .328 average, indicated he feels he's failing at handling the pitching staff.
As much talk as there is about the pitching, the offense isn't completely innocent. The .298 team batting average ranks third in C-USA, but the Bulldogs have left an average of nine runners on per game, including 14 in the series opener to UTSA.
Burroughs stressed how Tech is still the same team that beat Arkansas, Mississippi State and swept Texas-Arlington and Wichita State earlier in the year. It's simply a matter of overcoming the hurdle.
"When you struggle and you're scuffling, this game is played so much from the neck up, man it can really — I said it this morning, we play the most self-esteem crushing sport there is. There isn't another one that can crush you like baseball if you let it," he said.
Diaz, meanwhile, was honest in his assessment of the slump. He initially said Tech's belief level was low, but he later clarified he believes in his teammates and feels Tech just needs to figure out a way to win.
"To me, there's two words that come to mind. Work and belief," Diaz said. "You gotta work, work, work, work, work. I go to bed at night when we lose a game and all I can think about is things we did wrong and could I have worked differently to prevent that. Could I have practiced harder, you know what I mean?
"When I step in the box or when I go to see a guy on the mound and I'm going to catch and I see another teammate of mine step in the box, I gotta have 100 percent believe and confidence that he's going to get the job done. Because if I don't believe in him, who's going to believe in him?"
While Harris said Tech knows what its capable of, he admitted there's frustration in the locker room.
There's optimism, too, simply based off what Tech did last year. Tech held an 18-12 record around this time in 2016 before going on a magical run that ended with 40-plus wins and a regional berth.
"Honestly, not panicking. If you think back to it last year, we didn't start as hot as we did at the start of conference last year, either," Harris said. "I think this year is just amplified so much because of the hot start we had, but there is so much of the season left.
"Obviously, everybody is a little on edge because we want to win so bad, but we're not freaking out because we're a senior led team, we know how we have to win, how we have to turn this thing around."