Baylor pounds Kansas 21-9. Bears take series.

Baylor took advantage of a steady strong breeze blowing out of Hoglund to hit eight homeruns and humiliate the Jayhawks 21-9.  Baylor won the weekend series two games to one.  Kansas falls to 18-12 overall and 4-5 in the Big-12.  Baylor improves to 20-8 and 7-5.

Kansas is back in action on Tuesday and Wednesday when they will play a pair of mid-week games at Iowa.  KU will provide an audio webcast of those games.  First pitch Tuesday at 6PM.

Additional elements of horror and the box score after the jump

There are so many negatives to talk about in this game that it is hard to know where to start.  I am sure the impending news stories out of Kansas and Baylor sources will include depressing facts about how long it has been since a game went this badly/wonderfully (dependent upon which team you cheer for.)  I’ll just list a few negatives and then try to put this game out of mind. 

Kansas used seven pitchers.  Four of them gave up homeruns.  The hardest hit was Brett Bochy who gave up three homeruns and only recorded one out.  Lee Ridenhour also gave up three long balls.  The Kansas starter made it through three innings before giving way with the Hawks trailing only by a score of 6-5.  Ridenhour gave up back to back homeruns in the first inning, the second of which, hit by Baylor shortstop Shaver Hansen, actually went over the scoreboard.  I’ve never seen that before.  Hansen hit three homeruns in the game.

Moving on to the positives, and I am reaching here, Tony Thompson hit his 8th homerun and drove in four more runs today.  Thompson was the only Jayhawk to leave the park.  Clearly this small ball Kansas team is going to run short on ammunition in offensive shootouts.  Casey Lytle hit three singles and collected three RBIs.  Back-up catcher Chris Manship collected his first collegiate hit in the 9th inning.  A final positive note, the frigid conditions meant that only about 150 fans witnessed this humiliation.

I hope the team follows my plan and writes this game off as a contest in which the environment played a bigger role than did talent and execution.  In the end it only counts as one loss.  The Hawks need to forget about this one quickly.  Powerhouse Oklahoma State arrives in Lawrence on Friday and the Jayhawks need to be on their game to take down the Cowboys next weekend.

Link to KU recap

Apr 05, 2009 at Lawrence, KS (Hoglund Ballpark)

Score by Innings                    R  H  E
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Baylor.............. 204 005 523 - 21 20  3
Kansas.............. 203 103 000 -  9 14  2
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