Dan Spencer is the first-year head coach at Texas Tech. He succeeds Larry
Hays, who was skipper for 22 seasons with the Red Raiders. Spencer played three
seasons at Texas Tech, including one season with Hays as head coach. Last year,
Spencer was associate head coach with the Red Raiders. Prior to that, Spencer spent
11 seasons at Oregon State. He was associate head coach for three years, as well
as pitching/catching coach and recruiting coordinator. A native of Vancouver,
Wash., Spencer helped the Beavers win consecutive College World Series titles.
March 12, 2009
Life on the Road
Our
second and third weeks of the season were not as much fun as the
first.
We
spent 11 days in California and played eight games against solid
competition. I am a firm believer that you learn more about your
team and the character of your team while playing on the road,
and that unfortunately you learn more and evaluate more when you
get beat.
Teams
that consistently win pitch and play well between the seventh
and ninth innings. By play well, I mean they execute their
offense and make the routine plays. In the eight games we played
in California we had one-run leads in the seventh in four of
them, we were down one run in the seventh in three of them and
had a six-run lead in the seventh in the other.
 We
have made mistakes in all phases of the “end game” to quote a
chess term, and again, to get over the hump, we will have to
correct them. You have to be able to play the short game late in
games both offensively and defensively, and we have made
mistakes in both.
You
have to pitch with a lead late in games. In short, that means
get the leadoff hitter out or at least throw him strikes and one
step further, when a reliever enters a game, he needs to get the
first hitter that he faces out. That is why he was put in to
matchup with a certain hitter.
Offensively, you need to be situational and move a runner and
score a runner from third with less than two outs. Very simple
stuff, but easier to talk about and more difficult to execute.
The
positives of the trip were that we played hard and showed up
every day even though the frustrations mounted. The character
and resolve of our team are evident. Things to build on.
Baseball is a tremendous character builder because of the amount
of failure involved in the game. The ability to move on and
separate pitches and at-bats is the difference maker with teams
and players. I feel confident that our team will be tougher and
smarter due to our past trip, even though we didn’t win some
games we could or should have.
Dan Spencer
(photos courtesy of Texas Tech Media Relations Office) |
