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Tadlock hopes Texas Tech baseball rediscovers the “recipe for winning.”

Pitching has been a sticking point for Texas Tech baseball fans throughout the 2024 season. Tim Tadlock has heard a lot about his team, but he can't blame the poor for the Red Raiders' loss to Oklahoma on Sunday.

Starting pitcher Mac Heuer got through just four batters in Sunday's Big 12 home finale against the Sooners before leaving the game. It wasn't his performance – even though he had just given up a two-run home run. Instead, Tadlock said Heuer was dealing with latissimus dorsi pain that ached as he pulled down to make the throw.

“Our starter came out in the first inning,” Tadlock said, “and I still think we did enough on the mound to be in position to win the game.”

He's right about one thing. The Red Raiders definitely had a chance to win. A ninth-inning comeback narrowly fell short as the Sooners finished with an 8-7 win at Dan Law Field. It was the first time Tech had been swept at home since 2011 and the first time it had been swept at home in a conference series since 2007.

The comeback falls short: Texas Tech Baseball won at home in Big 12 play for the first time since 2007 | 3 snack bars

Tadlock didn't have a full grasp of that fact after the game. He admitted he couldn't really add Sunday's setback to the overall weekend series against Oklahoma and needed more time to deal with the intricacies of the loss. However, Tadlock could sense how the Red Raiders have managed to come out on top in their last six conference games, putting them in danger of missing the Big 12 Tournament altogether.

“I think we had some mishaps on defense,” Tadlock said, “and I think we had some mishaps at the plate as well. The pitching rating again shows that we pitched well enough in enough games to win.” 'em. … Over the course of these games, you've got to have guys showing up one through nine. It's not about scoring hits, get them over, get them in.

“Often it’s about the little things and not necessarily the big things.”

And sometimes the little things add up to big things. That was the case for freshman second baseman TJ Pompey. He made two errors in the game, the first in the first frame when a routine ground ball slipped through his legs and into the outfield. This allowed Michael Snyder to hit his two-run home run against Heuer.

The other came in the fourth. Reliever Josh Sanders had a perfect pickoff play that put Bryce Madron in trouble. Sanders threw the ball to Pompey at second, whose throw to third missed, making Madron safe at third. Two throws later he scored with a sacrifice fly.

Pompey struggled at the plate throughout Big 12 play, going just 1 for 37 since April 16. He was tagged with four errors in the Oklahoma series, including Sunday's two. At the end of the fourth period he was substituted in favor of Will Burns.

“We want to allow guys to make physical mistakes,” Tadlock said, “and I think we've done that a lot and I think he's going to be a great player, but right now we just have to learn something different. “

This is a common theme for the Red Raiders as a whole. Texas Tech, which has lost six straight conference games and seven of eight overall, sits as the No. 10 seed in the Big 12 standings heading into its final conference series next week at Oklahoma State. Only the top ten teams in the rankings advance to Arlington for the conference tournament, so a win or two would be beneficial to Tech's cause.

However, it was a challenge to achieve victories. Since the team's eight-game winning streak in late March through the second week of April, Texas Tech is just 4-11 in its last 15 games. The team's RPI was 38th entering the Oklahoma series and is certain to decline, making an NCAA regional tournament bid even more of a challenge.

Tadlock praised how the team has stuck together during recent difficult times. Gavin Kash — whose leadoff homer sparked Tech's ninth-inning rally — said earlier this week that the Red Raiders know it's not up to any one person to get the job done. It's about the team putting things together, and Texas Tech is running out of time to do that.

“I think we just have to play good baseball,” Tadlock said. “Over the course of league play, we just didn’t play good baseball. If you give them more than three outs in an inning and if you give them away at-bats or maybe give them 90 (feet) extra, then that's not a recipe for winning. Let's try to return to this recipe.

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