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Texas Tech baseball season preview: Red Raiders try to snap 2-year slide
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- Texas Tech baseball season preview: Red Raiders try to snap 2-year slide
Tim Tadlock doesn't sugarcoat it: The Texas Tech baseball program that he led to three Big 12 championships and four College World Series in the not-distant past hasn't measured up in the past two seasons. The Red Raiders finished 33-26 in 2024 and 20-33 in 2025, missing the NCAA postseason both years.
"Yeah, it bugs me," the Tech coach said last week. "Absolutely, it bugs our whole staff, and yeah, you want to win baseball games."
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Last year's record, Tech's worst since 1985, triggered shakeups. Tadlock dismissed pitching coach Matt Gardner , who'd been in place since 2014. He hired two pitching coaches, Steve Foster and Steve Merriman , with lengthy pro baseball backgrounds. Tech athletics director Kirby Hocutt ended the annual automatic extension that once billed Tadlock's contract as a "lifetime contract," setting an end date of 2031.
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Now it's time to see how much progress the Red Raiders have made in the off-season.
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"I think the games will tell us that," Tadlock said. "Your job [in media] is to speculate about it. Mine's to get them ready to play.
"It's pretty simple: We haven't brought too many guys in here who don't think they can go win a baseball game every day. Go do it."
The Red Raiders start their hoped-for resurgence this coming week in the season-opening Shriners Children's College Showdown at Globe Life Field in Arlington. Tech faces Oklahoma (38-22 last season) at 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 13; Vanderbilt (43-18) at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 14; and Arkansas (50-15) at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 15.
Logan Hughes, Robin Villeneuve returning anchors in lineup
Among position players, Tech returns four full-time and two part-time starters. The former group includes first baseman Robin Villeneuve (.365, 12 home runs, 49 runs batted in), second baseman Tracer Lopez (.299-5-30 with 12 stolen bases), left fielder Logan Hughes (.327-19-58) and center fielder Kyeler Thompson (.257-2-23 with 29 stolen bases). They all started at least 48 games, Hughes earning first-team all-Big 12 recognition and Villeneuve second-team all-Big 12 honors.
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Shortstop Coleman Ryan (.248-0-11) and catcher Davis Rivers (.221-5-26) made 37 and 33 starts, respectively.
Connor Shouse swings at the ball during the Texas Tech baseball team's alumni game, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, at Rip Griffin Park.
Tadlock has considered batting Villeneuve leadoff, citing his team-high .447 on-base percentage last season when he usually batted third or cleanup.
"Kyeler's more your prototypical leadoff hitter," Tadlock said. "Only difference is Robin's on-base percentage, it was a good 80 points higher than everybody last year."
Tech has fortified the infield with junior catchers Matt Quintanar and A.J. Goytia, freshman shortstop Linkin Garcia, and junior shortstop/third baseman Luke Orfi.
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Quintanar was a .411 hitter with 15 homers and 60 RBI last season for Blinn College. Goytia played in 11 games for Miami (Fla.) two years ago and batted .280 with 7 homers and 37 RBI last year at McLennan Community College. Orfi was a .341 hitter last year for Florida SouthWestern State with 6 homers, 42 RBI, and 45 stolen bases.
Only two years ago, Tech was excited by the arrival of T.J. Pompey. Now he's transferred to Arkansas, and the Red Raiders are replacing one tall, toolsy shortstop with another.
Garcia, 6-5 and 218 pounds, is from Huntington Beach, California, and played last year at A3 Academy in Tampa, Florida. He made Baseball America's ranking of the top 25 freshmen and Perfect Game's listing of the top 100 freshmen.
"He's sure-handed, has got a good arm. He's going to hit," Tadlock said. "A combination of all three, he's kind of what you're looking for. He's a leader."
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In the outfield, freshman two-way player Jesse Rusinek is competing with Thompson in center, and sophomore two-way player Connor Shouse and Rusinek are options in right. Sophomore Jace Souza can play all three outfield spots — Tadlock calls him "an above-average defender (with an) above-average arm" — but has been slowed recently by a hamstring injury.
Shouse transferred from Georgia Tech, where he hit .265 in 24 games and made three relief appearances.
"Shouse played third the whole fall," Tadlock said. "Towards the end of the fall, he mentioned he'd like to get on the mound again. In other words, he wants to pitch. We're going to see if we can leave him in right. ... You do have to hit to play third and right. He's going to hit. He's been one of our best hitters since we've been here."
Two more top transfers are big lefthanded-hitting corner men: 6-4, 230-pound Hollis Porter's 21 home runs and 64 RBI last season for Maryland put him among the top run producers in the Big Ten, and 6-2, 215-pound Caden Ferraro was a .369 hitter with 18 homers and 74 RBI for Blinn, with whom he made back-to-back NJCAA World Series trips.
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Regarding Porter, Tadlock said, "You're signing up for the power, right? He's got power." Of Ferraro, Tadlock said, "He puts together really good at-bats, and he's always done that."
Texas Tech baseball pitching staff has to rebuild rotation
Jackson Burns pitches during the Texas Tech baseball team's alumni game, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, at Rip Griffin Park.
Even though Tech's 6.49 earned-run average last year was next to last in the Big 12, Major League teams nevertheless drafted four Tech pitchers , leaving holes in the staff. Gone are starters Mac Heuer and Zane Petty, valuable bulk-innings reliever Jack Cebert and versatile four-year man Trendan Parish — all draftees — and starter Tyler Boudreau, who committed to Alabama and then signed a free-agent deal with the New York Yankees .
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The Red Raiders got a boost with the return of sixth-year senior lefthander Ryan Free, who pitched for them in 2023 and 2024 before spending last year at Angelo State. Free led the Red Raiders in 2023 with 27 appearances, all in relief, going 5-4 with a 4.11 earned-run average. In 2024, making nine starts in 17 appearances, he finished 6-2 with a 6.36 ERA.
Returnees who were among the leaders in appearances last year are righthanders Lukas Pirko (0-4, 7.25), Logan Bevis (3-0, 7.04), Will Jordan (1-0, 4.19), Connor Mohan (1-2, 7.34) and Jonny Lowe (0-2, 12.38) and lefthander Jorden Espinoza (0-0, 13.50).
When healthy, right-handers Parker Hutyra and Jacob Rogers have had key roles, both reaching 20 appearances in 2024. Last year, however, Rogers missed the first two months of the season and Hutyra missed the last two.
On opening weekend last year, 6-6 righthander Jackson Burns started the third game at North Carolina. But then Burns was sidelined by mononucleosis and didn't appear again the rest of the season.
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"He was as good as anybody we had at that point," Tadlock said of the 2025 opening weekend, "and we really felt good about it. ... He had a good arm. He's always commanded the ball."
The staff's top newcomers include junior Donovan Becerra (15-3 in two years at New Mexico Junior College), sophomore Kaysen Raineri (0-0 in six appearances with Hawaii) and freshmen Adam Hayes and Rusinek.
At the end of January, Tadlock said Mohan, Free, Raineri, Burns, Espinoza, Pirko and Becerra had been built up, innings-wise.
Shouse, a right-hander, and Rusinek, a left-hander, could earn significant roles on the mound. Rusinek, a two-time all-state honoree at Brock, hit .526 last year and went 11-1 with a 1.24 ERA.
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"They've both done everything (in preparation) to hit and pitch," Tadlock said, "and so you figure that out. Both of them want to do it."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech baseball tries to snap two-year slide: Season preview
