Arizona baseball visits 1st-place Kansas while clinging to last spot in Big 12 Tournament
There are only 10 games left on the schedule, and as it stands now Arizona will finish with a losing record for the first time since 2014. To finish above . 500 would require the Wildcats making a deep run in the Big 12 Tournament, getting into which isn’t a guarantee.
Arizona (16-27, 7-14) currently sits in 12 th place out of 14 schools, with the top 12 making the tourney May 19-23 in Surprise. The Wildcats are a game ahead of Texas Tech and two behind the trio of Baylor, Kansas State and Utah with three league series to go. The first of those for the UA is against the current frontrunner, Kansas, who is 17-4 in the Big 12 and 34-11 overall.
Winning one game this weekend would go a long way toward ensuring it makes the conference tournament, since next weekend’s final home series is against last-place Houston (19-25, 4-17). “We’re trying to win every game because we want to play in the Big 12 Tournament, and we have some work to do,” UA coach Chip Hale said Wednesday. That was just over 12 hours removed from one of the most painful losses of the season, a 9-8 walkoff defeat at GCU that saw Arizona rally from down 3-0 early only to blow a 4-run lead in the bottom of the 9 th .
Everything that could go wrong in that final inning did, which has been a common occurrence this season. “It was almost the culmination of what’s gone on all year,” he said. “We just continue to, whether it’s a walk, a hit batsman, wild pitches, an error, we put guys in scoring position when we don’t have to.
Like, they haven’t earned it, I guess I should put it that way, and I think that’s hurt us a lot this year, whether it’s in the last couple innings or even early in the game. ” The UA is 6-11 in games decided by one or two runs this season. Last year, in reaching the College World Series, it was 20-3.
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