COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Senior first baseman Jacob House tied his career high with four RBI Tuesday night as the No. 6 Texas A&M baseball team defeated Houston Baptist 7-2 in front of 3,674 fans at Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park.
The victory was the sixth straight for the Aggies, who improved to 20-5 on the season and have scored seven or more runs in five of the six games during the winning streak.
“I thought we played well” Texas A&M head coach Rob Childress said. “Houston Baptist has got a good team and they’ve played a lot of one-run games against good teams. We knew we were going to have our hands full. This was their game of the week, they haven’t played since last Tuesday and they won’t play again until next Tuesday. We knew they’d be excited coming in here to play.”
The Aggie offense wasted no time jumping on HBU starter Dalton Schafer (2-4), scoring once in each of the game’s first five innings.
“We got their number one (pitcher) and did a good job against him, scoring every inning,” Childress added. “They go to the bullpen, then all of a sudden, it’s a 4-1, 5-2 game but every time they scored we answered.”
All-American outfielder Tyler Naquin, who went 2-for-4 to raise his team-best batting average to .441, got the offense rolling with a sharp single to center in the game’s first inning that plated shortstop Mikey Reynolds, who scored three times in the victory. The right fielder led off the third inning and came home himself on a RBI single off the bat of House.
Freshman right-hander Gandy Stubblefield drew his first career start against the Huskies, turning in a solid 4.1 innings of work and allowing only one run.
“Gandy did a nice job for it being his first career start,” Childress commented of the A&M rookie. “He came out and threw strikes, which is exactly what we asked him to do.”
Sophomore second baseman Charlie Curl, making his first start since Feb. 21, collected two RBI by driving in left fielder Brandon Wood in both the second and fourth innings.
Houston Baptist (6-15) got on the board in the top of the fifth, scoring a run off Stubblefield to cut the lead down to 4-1, but A&M reliever Corey Ray (2-0) got the Aggies out of the inning without any further damage to pick up the win on the mound.
House regained the Aggies’ four-run cushion in the bottom of the fifth with a RBI single to center field before adding a two-run double in home half of the seventh.
“I think we carried our offensive performance from this weekend into tonight’s game,” House said. “We did a great job of battling with two strikes. We’ve done a great job of setting up innings, with the first guys getting on and other guys in the lineup driving them in. It’s pretty hard for the other team to come back if we’re able to put a run up in every inning and just keep putting it on them.”
Texas A&M baseball jumps back into Big 12 Conference play this weekend when it hosts Missouri in a three-game series.