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Knudson: Down Just One Frog Too Many

By Mark Knudson, The Mtn. Insider
June 8, 2011

In the end, there was just one injury too many for the TCU Horned Frogs to overcome. Any coach will tell you that injuries are a part of sports and that championship teams are better at overcoming injuries than teams that fall short. By and large, that’s a true statement. Every team suffers injuries, and those that deal with them best usually come out ahead.

But, and this is a big but, when you’re a college baseball team, and you lose your entire weekend starting rotation to injury, you don’t have a great chance of extending your season very far.

In that respect, what head coach Jim Schlossnagle and TCU were able to accomplish this season should be saluted. A season that started with sky-high expectations, including a preseason number one ranking, ended when the sore-armed Frogs were knocked out of the NCAA tournament on their home field by Dallas Baptist and Oral Roberts. There would be no return trip to Omaha.

Does that mean the season was not a success? On one hand, yes, the season fell short of goals and expectations. On the other hand, despite losing three starting pitchers that each garnered multiple postseason honors a year ago and preseason accolades this spring for various reasons and varying lengths of time, TCU was still able to win the regular season Conference title comfortably and still ranked high enough in the polls and the RPI to get to host a regional. That’s pretty remarkable when you think about it.

The injury problems began as early as Opening Night back in February with Matt Purke, who couldn’t take the mound with blister problems, and ended when Kyle Winkler, who had stepped up into the ace role during the season, could only face two hitters in his last regional start against Oral Roberts before leaving with what appears to be a serious elbow injury. In between, Steven Maxwell, the 2010 Mountain West Pitcher of the Year, went down with a sore bicep. Purke missed a month and a half with a sore shoulder, limiting him to about half the innings he pitched last season and derailing his accession to the top of the MLB Draft.

With the emergence of freshman standout Andrew Mitchell and the solid effort of Eric Miller, the Frogs were still able to out pitch most of the competition this spring. But just when Purke was starting to work his way back into the weekend pitching plans, Maxwell went down. Then, with just two weeks to go before the conference tournament, Winkler’s elbow began to ache.

It’s safe to say that with Purke slowly coming back, that if either Maxwell or Winkler had been able to pitch as they normally do, TCU would’ve won the MWC Tournament and then won their regional to advance to the round of 16. Want the “what if” to hurt a little more? Eighth-seeded Rice (the top seed in their regional and No. 8 nationally) also lost in the regionals. That means that had TCU been able to beat Dallas Baptist and Oral Roberts - two decent teams with much less pitching than TCU should have had - that the Horned Frogs would’ve hosted a Super Regional for the very first time. Win that, and it would’ve been back to Omaha.

So basically one less injury to one of their three stalwart starting pitchers - none of whom missed a start last season - and the Horned Frogs would still be playing and have had a great chance to return to Omaha. It was not to be.

All eyes can focus on next season. Will Purke, who was drafted by the Washington Nationals with the 96th pick in the draft instead of in the top five as projected before the season, sign or return to school? Winkler has a year left in Fort Worth if he wants to stay. How bad is his elbow injury? He was a 10th round pick, about eight rounds after he should have been selected, because of the injury. Does he go to stay at TCU?

Imagine if both Winkler and Purke get healthy and return to Fort Worth to join Mitchell, Miller, Nick Frey, and Stefan Criton to form a staff that would be unmatched in America. Toss in signee Kyle Crick, a right-hander who was drafted by San Francisco in the third round. What if he decides to come to TCU? What if Kevin Cron, younger brother of Utah’s CJ Cron, passes up the Seattle Mariners and takes his scholarship and comes to Fort Worth.

Wow.

It may be painful to say “what if” about this season, but “what if” everyone comes back to make one more run through the MW? That could make the pain of 2011 a distant memory real quick.
See all of Mark Knudson's blog entries HERE.