Tanner Witt shuts down Alabama as No. 1 Texas baseball wraps up second series sweep

For the second straight week, Sunday was a fun day for the Texas Longhorns.

Tanner Witt gave No. 1 Texas a quality start on the mound and the Longhorns turned a midgame tie into a 6-1 win over Alabama at UFCU Disch-Falk Field. It completed the second series sweep of the season for the Longhorns (8-0), who also went 3-0 against Rice last weekend.

It's the second 8-0 start for Texas in the last three years.

"We always have that mindset, you’ve got to win on Sundays," Texas shortstop Trey Faltine said. "It’s easy once you win the first two games to get lackadaisical and stuff, but we really want to bring that focus and energy on Sunday.

"It’s a big game for us for sure, I think it’s a separator for good teams and great teams.”

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On Sunday, Witt retired the first 13 batters he faced. Six of those were strikeouts.

One of those strikeouts came at the expense of Owen Diodati, who fared better during his next at-bat. With one out in the fifth inning, Alabama's designated hitter ended Witt's bid for perfection with a home run to right field.

The back-and-forth battle between Diodati and Witt was settled by a sixth-inning tiebreaker. With the bases loaded, Diodati returned to the batter's box with two outs and the game tied 1-1. Witt caught him looking at a called third strike to get out of the inning.

A second-year right-hander, Witt spent his freshman year as a reliever. Witt said that experience in the bullpen helped him get out of Sunday's bases-loaded jam since he had previously worked in high-pressure situations.

"I kind of thrive on those situations," Witt said. "Strike one (against Diodati) was the biggest thing and then I got to two strikes quick, too.

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Like Alabama, Texas also was presented with a bases-loaded opportunity in the sixth. The Longhorns, however, didn't come up empty.

With one out, Faltine reclaimed the lead for Texas with a two-run single off new Alabama reliever Brock Guffey. Dylan Campbell followed with a run-scoring single of his own.

Faltine and Campbell's hits came out of the eighth and ninth spots in the batting order. 

"We have a deep lineup," Faltine said. "I think that’s one thing we pride ourselves in is no dropoff one through nine. Anyone on our team could be the three-hole hitter or the leadoff hitter."

Every Longhorns batter produced at least one hit. In the eighth inning, Texas scored twice more on a balk and Murphy Stehly's RBI triple.

Those runs provided the Texas bullpen with ample insurance. A key pickoff by catcher Silas Ardoin helped Lucas Gordon guide Texas through two scoreless innings. Alabama (5-3) singled twice off Aaron Nixon in the ninth inning, but a groundout ended the game.

Key play: Witt's second strikeout of Diodati was recorded on his 90th and final pitch of the afternoon. Witt struck out a career-high nine batters. He exited the game having allowed four hits.

With the victory, Witt improved to 7-0 in his career. Three of those wins have been earned against SEC teams. Last season, Witt made relief appearances and was the pitcher of record in UT's wins over South Carolina and Tennessee.

As a freshman, Witt also appeared in games against Arkansas, Texas A&M and Mississippi State. In six career face-offs with SEC offenses, Witt has given up 15 hits, six earned runs and seven walks over 19 2/3 innings. He has struck out 27 SEC batters. 

Notable Number: 1. Alabama scored only one run in Austin this weekend. The Longhorns opened the three-game series with 1-0 and 2-0 wins over the Crimson Tide.

Texas was trying to post a series-long shutout for the first time since it didn't let UT Pan American score during a three-game set in 2002. That shutout series over the Vaqueros was also preceded by a 14-0 win over McNeese State.

Texas pitched three straight shutouts against Minnesota during the 2015 season. The Gophers, though, did score two runs in the opener of that four-game series.

Up next: Texas won't return to Disch-Falk until March 9. On Tuesday, UT plays at Sam Houston State, then it's off to Minute Maid Park in Houston for three games at next weekend's Shriners College Classic.

Ten of the next 11 games on the Longhorns' schedule will be played away from UFCU Disch-Falk Field. Texas coach David Pierce said that while "this stretch was probably a little bit more than I wanted," there was still strategy behind the scheduling.

"You want to look at how your RPI plays," Pierce said. "You want to look at how we respond in hostile environments before we get into conference."