BY GEORGE WATSON | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

Now comes the first dose of adversity.

For the first time this season, a young and relatively inexperienced Texas Tech baseball team finds out how it responds when things don’t go its way, and how to bounce back after blowing a five-run lead.

New Mexico scored six runs in the top of the seventh and took advantage of shaky Tech pitching for a 13-10 victory over the Red Raiders Tuesday at Dan Law Field.

“When you get to the seventh with a five-run lead, you’re supposed to win those games, and obviously we let one get away,” head coach Dan Spencer said. “When you score six runs in an inning, you need some help and we helped them with hit batters and walks. You can’t help anybody and surely not a good team that is an offensive club. They didn’t have to earn much in that inning.”

The Red Raiders (4-1) overcame a bad start by junior right-hander Nathan Karns, who surrendered five runs on five hits and two walks in two innings. Tech was able to survive it thanks to an offense that scored seven runs in the first two innings, three on Chris Richburg’s second home run of the season.

And, for awhile, it looked like Tech would get the relief pitching it needed from a couple of freshmen. Left-hander Ben Flora took over in the third and worked 21/3 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and striking out four. Right-hander Louis Head retired five of the first six batters he faced, holding New Mexico (4-1) scoreless until the seventh.

That allowed the Red Raiders to add to their lead, getting two in the fifth on a Scott LeJeune RBI single and sacrifice fly by Justin Berry. Tech added one more in the sixth on two singles and a balk to push the lead to 10-5.

But that’s where things imploded on the Red Raiders. Head faced five batters in the seventh, allowing two singles and a walk and hitting two more batters. Tech turned to senior right-hander Brian Cloud, the early closer, but the Cooper product struggled as well, giving up two walks, a two-run single and an RBI groundout as New Mexico grabbed an 11-10 lead.

The Red Raiders also hurt themselves with three errors, a season high.

Tech had runners in scoring position in the sixth and seventh innings, but both times with two outs and both times leaving them on base as New Mexico relievers Gabe Aguilar (1-0), Cole White and Clinton Cox combined for 31/3 innings of scoreless relief.

“(At 10-5) in the seventh, everybody in the ballpark felt like the game should have been over,” said Richburg, who also had an RBI single as part of a three-run first inning. “When your offense isn’t putting up runs in the last four innings, that’s not going to help, and we felt like in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings this time of year we’ve got to put some good at bats together and pitch and play defense, and we didn’t to any of those things tonight. It’s something we can’t let happen again.”

To avoid such a scenario, the Red Raiders will have to avoid the mound meltdown that came from one of its most promising youngsters and its veteran closer candidate.

Head allowed just two hits but surrendered five runs thanks to a walk and three hit batters. Cloud (1-1), who worked 21/3 scoreless innings with five strikeouts on Friday, gave up three runs on five hits and four walks and struck out just two. He gave up the go-ahead run in the seventh and two more insurance runs in the ninth on a bases-loaded single by Rafael Nada.

“Overall, we were leaving the ball up, and we had five walks that came around to score,” catcher Kevin Whitehead said. “We’ve got to learn to limit those free passes.
“The dugout relaxed (after the fifth inning) but that had no effect of what we do on the field.”

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