Junior left-hander Robert Gasser earned his sixth win of the year, throwing seven innings allowing no earned runs and striking out 10 to power UH baseball to victory in its series opener against Memphis. | Andy Yanez/The Cougar
The Houston baseball team moved to 19-28 on the year after splitting its four-game weekend series against Memphis at FedEx Park.
After struggling in his last outing, junior left-hander Robert Gasser returned to his normal form in the first game of Friday’s series opening doubleheader. Gasser powered the Cougars to a 2-1 win, throwing seven innings allowing no earned runs and striking out 10, his fourth double-digit strikeout performance of the season.
Junior outfielder Steven Rivas got things going for UH at the plate, hitting an RBI single in the top of the fourth to plate the game’s first run.
After Memphis tied things up in the bottom half of the fourth thanks to a UH error, sophomore infielder Ian McMillan came through in the seventh with an RBI double to left to give the Cougars the lead once again.
Sophomore reliever Derrick Cherry shut the door out of the bullpen, pitching a shutout over the final two innings to earn the save and secure the UH win.
The second game of Friday’s doubleheader was a slugfest, as pitching came at a premium for both teams.
Rivas added to his monster day tallying two more hits, a triple and a solo shot to right, to drive in three runs. Junior first baseman Ryan Hernandez drove in a pair with a two-run bomb to left in the fifth.
Despite UH’s strong performance at the plate, the Memphis bats were even better.
The Tigers caused many problems for the Cougars’ pitching staff, scoring 13 runs on 11 hits to cruise to a 13-7 victory.
UH bounced back Saturday, erasing an early four-run deficit to pull out a 7-5 comeback win.
The Cougars offense scored at least one run in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth while Cherry threw 3 and 1/3 innings of one-run, four strikeout baseball in relief to earn his second save of the series.
In Sunday’s series finale, Cougars were six outs away from winning their first series since mid-March before everything completely unraveled.
Powered by a pair of RBI singles from freshman utility player Samuel Tormos and solo home runs from sophomore infielder Brad Burckel and Hernandez, UH led 4-0 going into the bottom of the eighth.
After grad student right-hander Layne Looney walked the bases loaded to begin the inning, Memphis tallied four hits and three more walks, bringing the Tigers total of free passes in the inning to seven, to put up an eight spot on the scoreboard.
The Tigers shut things down in the top of the ninth to hand the Cougars an 8-4 loss and split the series.
