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Texas Tech Becomes Outright Baseball Regular Season Champions

By virtue of Oklahoma State’s Sunday loss, Texas Tech has won the 2016 Big 12 baseball regular season title outright.

The Red Raiders, 17-4 in Big 12 play with an off weekend, will finish with the conference’s best win percentage regardless of the outcomes of their final three league games as OSU is now 13-8. Tech hosts West Virginia in Lubbock in the final weekend of the regular season, May 19-21.

TTU will be the No. 1 seed in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship, May 25-29, at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City.

Picked to finish fifth in the preseason coaches’ poll, the Red Raiders (38-13, 17-4) are league champions for the second time after winning the title in the conference’s inaugural season in 1997. Tech becomes the fifth team to win multiple regular season titles in the Big 12’s 20-year history.

The Big 12 has produced a different league champion for the past six seasons. Entering the year, the league was the only “Power Five” conference in which a different team had won the regular season each of the past five seasons.

The Red Raiders have won all four of their Big 12 road series this season as Texas Tech is 10-2 away from home in league play after taking two-of-three games at Baylor (March 18-20) and No. 6 TCU (April 29-May 1) while also sweeping No. 16 Oklahoma State (April 8-10) and Kansas (May 6-8). Tech is one of 12 teams to win 10 or more conference games away from home in a single season.

The Red Raiders are led by fourth-year head coach Tim Tadlock, who was named the 2014 College Baseball Hall of Fame National Coach of the Year in a season in which TTU advanced to the College World Series.

Tech’s successful start to league play was boosted by a school record 11-game conference winning streak, which marked the fifth-longest winning streak in league history.

The Red Raiders rank second in the league in batting and third in ERA. Sophomore Tanner Gardner and senior Eric Gutierrez lead Tech at the plate, ranking in the top 10 in batting average, while Davis Martin (6-0), Steven Gingery (3-0) and Hayden Howard (2-1) are among the top 10 in ERA.