Brendan Summerhill with the game-winning sac fly off the bench
Arizona has had its regular starting lineup available at the same time for only 18 games this season, just twice since mid-March. Yet the Wildcats have already matched their regular-season win total from a year ago with seven games left to play.
“The one thing I know we are is gritty, we’re going to battle,” UA coach Chip Hale said after Arizona rallied to beat TCU 5-4 on Saturday night at Hi Corbett Field to clinch .
Brendan Summerhill, who had not played since suffering a hamstring strain last weekend at Texas Tech, hit a pinch-hit sacrifice fly with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 8th to score Mathis Meurant with the winning run. That capped a comeback for the Wildcats (33-13, 15-8 Big 12) from down 4-1, the second night in a row they’ve come from behind to beat TCU (32-15, 14-9).
The Horned Frogs scored four times in the top of the 5th against Collin McKinney, who looked stellar over the first four frames before losing his control. He hit the leadoff man, walked the next batter, then allowed a single to load the bases, and after getting a strikeout gave up a run-scoring single, threw a wild pitch to put TCU up and then yielded a 2-run triple to Sawyer Strosnider but getting pulled.
“Collin did a really good job tonight, he just again, the walk, the hit batter, and then everything got out of hand on him,” Hale said. “But I thought his stuff was fantastic. I thought for the (first) four innings, he was really good.”
Raul Garayzar came on and finished the 5th, stranding Strosnider at third, then allowed one baserunner over the next three innings to keep it a 3-run deficit.
“Just mixing pitches,” Garayzar said of his performance. “It’s kind of the same thing as starting. Last week I was throwing harder but wasn’t mixing pitches.”
Arizona got a run in the 6th on a 2-out double by Meurant, who had his fifth 2-hit game in his last nine starts. The Wildcats then tied it in the 7th thanks to a pair of TCU errors on the same play.
With runners on the corners and two out, Maddox Mihalakis singled through the right side to score Gunner Geile. TCU second baseman Cole Cramer, playing deep on a shift, misplayed the ball before throwing it in to first base but Mihalakis had already started toward second.
“Once I saw him throw it somewhere other than second I saw second base was open, so I just just took off there,” Mihalakis said.
The throw got past shortstop Anthony Silva, allowing Mason White to score the tying run.
“When you play a really good team—they’re very good team, we feel like we’re a good team—and the mistakes, if you can force some mistakes with some pressing on the runner, we got some breaks, and we took advantage of it,” Hale said.
In the 8th the UA benefited from another error on what could have been an inning-ending double play. That put two on, and after Easton Breyfogle walked to load the bases with one out and TCU made a pitching change Summerhill came off the bench to hit for Geile.
Hale didn’t want to use Summerhill, but his future first round pick talked him into it.
“What I didn’t want to do was put him in a situation where he had to beat out a ground ball, and that’s why I didn’t want to use him there,” Hale said. “He basically convinced me that he’d hit the ball in the air, so I let him do it. That’s why, when it got (first) and third, the problem is they’ll walk him. You really had to force their hand and make them pitch to him.”
Summerhill hit the first pitch he saw to left, plenty deep for Meurant to score and put Arizona up 5-4.
Garayzar came back out for the 9th but after giving up a leadoff single he was replaced by Casey Hintz. Hintz retired the first two batters he faced but then gave up a bloop double to right to put the tying run on third and go-ahead run in scoring position for Strosnider.
Hintz hit Strosnider on an inside pitch on a 3-2 count to load the bases but then struck out Cramer on three pitches.
Arizona, which moved into a tie for 2nd place in the Big 12 with ASU and Kansas, can go for the sweep Sunday at 12 p.m. PT. The Wildcats have won 12 consecutive home series finales.