No. 27 Baylor baseball fought for a 6-2 win vs. West Virginia in the series rubber match on Saturday afternoon at Monongalia County Ballpark. The Bears (32-19, 13-11) used a three-run fourth inning to down the Mountaineers (27-25, 9-15).
Richard Cunningham broke a scoreless tie in the third with a two-out RBI single for Baylor. Then in the fourth, Cole Haring had an RBI single and T.J. Raguse delivered a huge, two-strike, two-out, two-run double for a 4-0 lead.
WVU answered with two runs in the bottom of the fourth but did not score again. Meanwhile, the Bears scored in the ninth on a Nick Loftin squeeze bunt and Cunningham two-out single.
BU reliever Alex Phillips (6-1) earned the win, allowing an unearned run on four hits with five strikeouts in four innings. WVU reliever Alek Manoah (3-6) took the loss, giving up three runs on three hits and one walk with one strikeout in 0.2 innings.
NOTES
*Baylor has won 18 of its last 21 games.
*Baylor has won four straight Big 12 series and five straight overall series for the first time since 2012.
*Baylor has 12 or more wins (13) in Big 12 play for the second straight season. BU has won 12 or more in two straight seasons (12 in 2017) for the first time since 2012 (20) and 2013 (12).
*Baylor has won 30 or more (32) games in a season for the second straight year (34 in 2017), giving the program back-to-back 30-win seasons for the first time since 2011 (31) and 2012 (49).
*Baylor is 8-4 in three-game series this season (3-3 on road, 5-1 at home) and has a combined record of 20-14.
*Baylor has scored 121 runs in its last 92 innings.
*Richard Cunningham has an eight-game on-base streak and three-game hitting streak as he had his 16th multi-hit game (3) and team-high-tying 12th multi-RBI game (2).
*Shea Langeliers has a six-game on-base streak.
*Freshman Davion Downey posted his 12th multi-hit game (3).
*Cole Haring totaled his 15th multi-hit game (2).
*T.J. Raguse tallied his seventh multi-hit game (2) and fourth multi-RBI game (2).
*Alex Phillips tied a career high with five strikeouts and upped his career high win total to six.
STAT OF THE GAME
18 – The amount of outs recorded while giving up just one unearned run by the Baylor bullpen (Alex Phillips: 12; Drew Robertson: three; Troy Montemayor: three).
QUOTE OF THE GAME
“The big thing was that we knew it was a big weekend and we handled it well. The stress and energy levels were a little higher than normal. We are doing a lot of great things out there. The postseason stuff, we still have to find our way in and do a lot of things right and make the decision for the committee as tough as possible. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that.” – Baylor Head Coach Steve Rodriguez
WHAT’S NEXT
The Bears head to Oklahoma City for the Big 12 Championship as the No. 5 seed on May 23-27. BU will play No. 4 Oklahoma on Wednesday, May 23.
