Baylor Baseball Tops No. 10 TCU, 4-3

WACO, Texas – Baylor baseball earned a 4-3 win over No. 10 TCU on Friday night at Baylor Ballpark to open a three-game series.  The Bears (21-25, 7-12) bounced back three times to take down the Horned Frogs (33-13, 11-8).

Trailing 1-0 after the first inning, Baylor took its first lead in the third inning.  T.J. Raguse reached first after a fielder’s choice and moved to second on a two-out single by Matt Menard.  Then Kameron Esthay delivered a two-run triple for a 2-1 lead.

TCU tied the game in the fourth, but the Bears responded in the bottom half.  Aaron Dodson and Justin Arrington led off the inning with singles, and after a sacrifice bunt by Josh Bissonette and strikeout, a wild pitch scored Dodson for a 3-2 lead.

The Horned Frogs countered right away with a run in the fifth inning. However, BU once again had an answer in the seventh.  Steven McLean led off with a double and scored on a Raguse single.

From there, BU starter Drew Tolson finished the sixth and seventh innings scoreless while Joe Heineman and Troy Montemayor put up zeroes in the eighth and ninth innings, respectfully.

Tolson (5-3) earned the win, giving up three runs (two earned) on eight hits and five walks with three strikeouts in seven innings.  Montemayor picked up his 11^th save in a perfect ninth with one strikeout.  TCU reliever Preston Guillory (2-2) took the loss, allowing one run on two hits in 0.2 innings.

NOTES

*Baylor leads the all-time series against TCU 141-119 overall and 73-44 in Waco but the Bears have lost all three all-time Big 12 series to TCU, including a sweep in Fort Worth last season.  BU has won two straight in the series.

*Baylor is 1-1 on its current four-game home stand.

*Baylor is 400-181 all-time at Baylor Ballpark and 15-15 under Steve Rodriguez.

*Baylor has won three of its 10 three-game series in 2016 and 24 of 54 since 2012.

*Baylor is 196-290-1 all-time against opponents ranked by Baseball America, 31-38 since 2011 and 2-2 in 2016 – the Bears are 89-147 all-time against top 10 teams and 1-0 this year.

*Kameron Esthay has a career-high 11-game hitting streak as he posted his fourth multi-RBI game of the season.

*Matt Menard has a career-high-tying 10-game on-base streak.

*Steven McLean has a four-game hitting streak.

*Justin Arrington has a five-game hitting streak.

*Richard Cunningham has a career-high-tying four-game hitting streak.

*Aaron Dodson notched his 10^th multi-hit game of the season.

*Drew Tolson picked up his career-high fifth win of the season.

*Troy Montemayor gathered his 11^th save in his 12^th try of the season and of his career – he’s the ninth player in BU history with 10 or more saves in a season (first since Josh Michalec set the single-season BU and Big 12 records with 21 saves in 2014) and he ranks tied for fifth on BU’s single-season saves list and 10^th on BU’s career saves list.