Tech ponders rotation options as baseball season begins

The Texas Tech baseball team opens the season with the first of 10 consecutive home games at 1 p.m. Friday against Gonzaga, a team that's made NCAA regionals each of the past two years. One of the interesting facets to watch during the long homestand will be how the Red Raiders' rotation develops.

Sophomore righthander Kyle Robinson, sophomore lefthander Mason Molina and fifth-year senior righthander Bo Blessie will start the first three games, and Tech coach Tim Tadlock said sophomore righthander Trendan Parish, junior righthander Brendan Girton and freshman lefthander Taber Fast all will pitch on opening weekend.

Robinson getting the opening-day assignment and Blessie being in the rotation raised some eyebrows, considering they're returnees who threw only 19 1/3 innings between them last year. Both have a lot of ability, but they'll have to earn it to keep those spots.

"We've talked to them all about you've got a 56-game schedule and you've got six guys that could start," Tadlock said. "We're trying to have an open mind, and we're going to mix it up some. We're going to look week to week, 'Hey, let's try this. Start Girton. Bring Kyle out of the bullpen.' And possibly even sometimes give a guy a weekend off where they can kind of recover or whatever.

"We're going to try to make it where everybody's stronger at the end than they are at the start. Now, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Girton was in that rotation in two weeks and never comes out. But I think all six of those guys can raise the bar for each other, without a doubt."

Girton and Parish both have had high-leverage bullpen roles for the Red Raiders, Girton for the past two years and Parish last year as a true freshman when he had a team-high six saves. Because of arm problems, however, Girton didn't pitch last year after March 20 and Parish not after May 3. Girton was building back up to return to the mound late in the season, but Parish underwent a medical procedure on his elbow.

Tadlock said both are good to go now, but they could use time to build up to starter innings.

"Brendan Girton, Trendan Parish, Taber Fast, we could have picked those three (to start)," Tadlock said. "We feel like all six of those guys can start, but first-weekend pitch counts are not built up like a hundred pitches."

In the meantime, the Red Raiders want to give a good look to Robinson and Blessie, both of whom have impressive tools. Last February, Tadlock called then-freshmen Molina, Parish, Robinson and Brendan Lysik "top-end guys." Molina and Parish immediately seized key roles, and now it might be Robinson's turn.

The 6-foot-4, 210-pound sophomore pitched to a 4.63 earned-run average in 12 relief appearances last season. Then he pitched in the California Collegiate League for the Santa Barbara Foresters, who in August won their third consecutive National Baseball Congress World Series championship.

Robinson started in six of seven appearances for the Foresters, pitching to a 3.46 ERA. In 26 innings, he struck out 21 and allowed 23 hits and 11 walks.

"He started for them, pitched good and threw the ball well for us," said Tadlock, adding that Robinson had been the team's most consistent pitcher from the beginning of fall through preseason practice.

Blessie, highly regarded coming out of Midland Lee, has spent two years at Nebraska, one at Midland College and is starting his second season at Tech. He's thrown only 65 2/3 innings over the past four years, and 50 1/3 came in 2021 with Midland College, when he went 6-2 with a 4.83 ERA and 70 strikeouts.

The 6-3, 190-pounder has wowed with his high-90s velocity. Tadlock said Blessie has made "the biggest jump" among the pitchers.

Keeping him healthy will be key. To do that, the initial plan is to pitch him once a week. That was the approach last year with Brandon Birdsell, who'd been shut down the year before with a shoulder injury, and Birdsell bounced back with a breakout year, going 9-3 with a 2.75 ERA.

"Bo Blessie wasn't on our 30-man (active) roster last year often, wasn't even really a thought very often out of the bullpen," Tadlock said. "Right now, we're really looking at him the same way we were looking at Birdie last year. Power arm. Above average stuff. Experience. How do you keep him healthy? We think running him there one time a week."

Bridges out multiple weeks

Oft-used lefthanded reliever Derek Bridges is coming back from an arm problem and won't pitch in games until "the end of March at the earliest," Tadlock said. "Probably throwing to hitters two weeks before that, but not in a game. He'll want to pitch in a game in a couple of weeks."

Bridges made a team-high 27 appearances last year with a 3.27 ERA and co-led the team in appearances in 2021 with 19, pitching to a 3.97 ERA. In 33 1/3 innings, he's struck out 35, walked nine and yielded 32 hits.

Four out for year

Tadlock confirmed a report by D1Baseball's Kendall Rogers that Tech pitcher Jack Washburn and infielder Jake Dukart will miss the season with injuries. Rogers said Dukart had a back injury, Washburn a shoulder injury.

Tadlock said freshman shortstop Travis Sanders, who decided to stick with the Red Raiders after the Boston Red Sox drafted him in the 14th round, also will miss this season with an injury.

So will pitcher Hayde Key, a third-year sophomore who made 10 appearances in 2021 and redshirted last year. Tadlock, generally reluctant to discuss injuries, said last April that Key faced a medical procedure with a "10-month to 18-month" recovery period, presumably an allusion to Tommy John surgery.

Tadlock said medical hardship waivers will be pursued for Washburn, Sanders and Key to restore this year's eligibility. He said Dukart, who played four seasons at Oregon State and graduated before transferring to Tech, has left the program. Dukart, who started 110 games at OSU, mostly at third base and DH, will still be recognized with this year's Tech seniors because of the leadership and guidance he offered the team's young players during the fall, Tadlock said.

"He decided the day before school he was hanging it up, just too much pain," Tadlock said.

Washburn figured to play a key role for Tech after he went 5-2 with a 3.35 earned-run average last season on Ole Miss's national-champion team. Washburn, a brother of Tech right fielder Owen Washburn, missed most of fall practice with an injury Tadlock said had he pitched through last season.

"We threw him twice at the end of the fall," Tadlock said. "He came back, was having discomfort, got it looked at, an old injury. He's got to let it heal."

Thomas idled

Texas Tech third-base coach J-Bob Thomas will serve a seven-game suspension beginning with the season opener. That stems from an altercation with an umpire in the Red Raiders' last game of the 2022 season, a loss to Notre Dame in the final of the NCAA Statesboro Regional.

Tadlock smiled and appeared amused when the subject came up this week.

"He's going to come sit with you (media). Have fun," Tadlock said. "I don't think he knows what he's going to do, because we can't be on the road (recruiting) right now. If we could be on the road, it would be easy. 'Hey, go to games.' "

The suspension is one game for ejection of a non-head coach, two games for prolonged arguing and four games for bumping an umpire.

"He's going to be a mess," Tadlock said in reference to the suspension period. "If I thought we could have appealed it and made it shorter or whatever, we would've, but we asked and there wasn't any (chance). I get it. It was on TV. I get it."

College baseball

Who: Texas Tech vs. Gonzaga

When: 1 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. Sunday, 11 a.m. Monday

Where: Dan Law Field/Rip Griffin Park

Records/finish in 2022: Gonzaga 37-19, 20-7 in West Coast Conference, 1-2 in NCAA Blacksburg Regional. Texas Tech 39-22, 15-9 in Big 12, 2-2 in NCAA Statesboro Regional.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: An arms race: Tim Tadlock says six pitchers under consideration to be starters for Texas Tech