Texas digs itself another hole with a series-opening shutout loss to visiting TCU

In recent weeks, Fridays — and the occasional Thursday — have just not been kind to the Texas Longhorns.

TCU scored an early run and then slowly distanced itself in a 5-0 win at UFCU Disch-Falk Field on Friday. Texas has now lost the opener in six straight series.

Previously, Texas rallied to win the best-of-three series against Baylor, Kansas State and Houston. The Longhorns were not as lucky against Washington and BYU. Only time will tell what happens this weekend against TCU.

"It's tough, man. It's tough on the heart and just trying to deal with knowing that you have very little room for error," Texas coach David Pierce said. "The one positive thing about it is they've been resilient and been able to bounce back and do it, so we have to lean on that right now."

What has gone wrong for Texas in these openers? There hasn't been a recurring theme. The Longhorns were outlasted in 11 innings by Baylor and outclassed by Washington. Texas scored 11 runs in openers against Kansas State and BYU, but opponents scored 21. Two-hit in last week's opener at Houston, Texas was shut out for the first time this season on Friday.

"Not sure (about the series-opener struggles), to be honest. Not sure," third baseball Peyton Powell said.

An announced crowd of 7,449 was treated to a pitching duel to start Friday's game. TCU doubled twice in the opening inning, but Texas starter Max Grubbs limited the Horned Frogs to just a run through the first five frames. TCU's Payton Tolle faced the minimum amount of batters through four, and Tolle then worked around the hit and walk he allowed in a scoreless fifth.

TCU added runs in the sixth and eighth innings before a two-run ninth inning sealed the deal.

One of the last four teams to make the cut in D1Baseball's most-recent projections for the NCAA Tournament, Texas is now 9-7 in Big 12 play. The Longhorns slipped into a fourth-place tie with Baylor in the Big 12 standings.

The preseason pick to win the Big 12, TCU has won eight of its 19 conference contests.

The Texas-TCU series will resume on Saturday afternoon. Due to concerns about inclement weather, the first pitch of that game has been moved up to 4 p.m. The announced starters for this Saturday skirmish are Texas left-hander Ace Whitehead (3-0, 3.86 ERA) and TCU right-hander Louis Rodriguez (3-1, 3.18 ERA) who was once a teammate at California's Orange Lutheran High with UT reserve infielder Casey Borba.