By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Steve Rodriguez came out of the opening weekend with a lot of questions about his Baylor baseball team after being swept at home by Maryland. 
            Taking two of three against 23^rd-ranked Duke, including a 12-3 win in the opening game of Sunday's doubleheader at Baylor Ballpark, the Bears (3-4) answered a lot of those questions. 
            "It's not like you played some teams that are struggling right now," said Rodriguez, whose team came up short of a series sweep, giving up two eighth-inning runs in a 4-2 loss to the Blue Devils. 
            "We played two quality teams, and I thought we played really well against them. Now, it's just a matter of continuing that. Once we get to conference, we shouldn't be surprised by anything."
            Perhaps the biggest question answered was the weekend starting rotation. After Tyler Thomas tossed six shutout innings in Friday night's 4-2 win, Nevada grad transfer Jake Jackson (1-1) and sophomore right-hander Will Rigney both gave Baylor impressive starts in Sunday's doubleheader. 
            Jackson went seven innings in the first game, allowing one run (none earned) on four hits and three walks with four strikeouts to pick up his 16^th career victory and first at Baylor. 
            "The guys gave me a ton of run support, so hat's off to them," Jackson said. "They supported me, so I'm going to give it all I've got and support them. (Pitching coach Jon) Strauss asked me if I wanted to go out for the seventh, and I told him, 'I want to shut this team down and send a message to them that I'm going to put it away.'''
            Rigney, making his second appearance of the season and first start since 2020, struck out six of the 16 batters he faced and walked none in a four-inning stint. After giving up a run on two hits in the first, he allowed just two more hits over the next three innings and left with a 2-1 lead. 
            "They stepped up when we needed them to," said Jared McKenzie, who went 2-for-5 with two RBI in the opener and then walked three times in the second game. "Coming off last weekend, they put that behind them and came out here and attacked early in the zone. It was good to see them competing up there, and we know we have some things to clean up on defense that'll help them even more."
            For the second-straight game, the sixth proved to be the Bears' inning. After the visiting Blue Devils (4-3) scored an unearned run in the fifth, Baylor exploded for seven runs in the bottom of the sixth on five walks, a hit batter and two-run hits by Esteban Cardoza-Oquendo and Jack Pineda. 
            "The biggest thing was the quality at-bats," Rodriguez said. "They were going to give us a walk or a hit-by-pitch, and then came up with a big hit. That was huge. When Esteban got the single, and we were able to score some runs, being able to execute like that was really big. You start to build a little confidence when that starts to happen. It was just good to see our guys punch a hole through the seal a little bit."
            The Bears tacked on three more runs in the seventh inning on three walks, a run-scoring triple by Pineda and McKenzie's second RBI hit in as many innings. 
            "Making sure we're here with an 8:30 batting practice, it's not easy to do," Rodriguez said. "But, just the situation we had with (Saturday's) weather and making sure (Duke) could catch a flight, we had to do what we had to do to make sure we had an 11 o'clock start. And I thought our guys did a great job. They came out hot this morning."
            The Baylor bats cooled off considerably in the second game, going 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position and managing just four hits combined off Duke's four pitchers. Senior Jimmy Loper (1-0) got the win in relief, striking out five and giving up just two hits and one walk in 3.0 innings. 
            In a bizarre game, the Bears tied it up at 1-1 in the bottom of the first on a bases-loaded walk by Chase Wehsener. Then, in the fourth, freshman Kobe Andrade led off with a walk and came around to score on two wild pitches and a sac bunt. 
            At that point, Baylor had a 2-1 lead and no hits. 
            Duke tied it up in the top of the fifth with an unearned run off reliever Brett Garcia. The game remained 2-2 until Graham Pauley led off the top of the eighth with a home run off reliever Matt Voelker (0-1), then the Blue Devils scored an insurance run on Jake Topolski's bases-loaded walk off Hambleton Oliver. 
             "They have good, quality arms that are kind of all over in the zone," Rodriguez said. "It's hard for a hitter to get a rhythm, because you've got a ball at your feet and then you've got a ball over your head. I thought our guys did a pretty good job, we hit some balls hard, we just couldn't get the hit we needed with runners in scoring position."
            After a 3-4 homestand to open the season, Baylor will go on the road for its next five. The Bears play Rice (2-5) at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Reckling Park in Houston, then UCLA, Tennessee and LSU at the Shriners Children's College Classic at Minute Maid Park in Houston. 
 
 

THE RUNDOWN
WACO, Texas – Baylor baseball (3-4) split its doubleheader with No. 23 Duke (4-3) on Sunday at Baylor Ballpark, clinching a series win over the ranked Blue Devils in the process.

The Bears' offense exploded for a 12-3 win in game one of the twin bill, but later came up short in a 4-2 loss in the series finale.

In game one, BU got out to a 2-0 lead through the first four innings with an RBI double by Tre Richardson and a run-scoring bloop single off the bat of Esteban Cardoza-Oquendo.

Duke scratched across an unearned run in the top of the fifth, but the floodgates broke open for the Bears in the bottom of the sixth as they put up a seven-spot to go ahead 9-1. Six walks, three hits, a hit-by-pitch and a Duke error resulted in the crooked number, as Baylor sent 13 men to the plate. Cardoza-Oquendo added to his tally with a two-RBI single and Jack Pineda drove in two as well.

BU would add three more in the seventh inning as Pineda tripled in Cardoza-Oquendo and later scored on an RBI single from Jared McKenzie, his second RBI of the day. Tre Richardson crossed the plate on a fielder's choice to put the final tally mark on the board for the Bears.

On the mound, Jake Jackson was masterful in seven innings of work, allowing just one unearned run and four hits. He walked three, but struck out four in collecting his first win of the season.

The Blue Devils would cash in with two runs off Kobe Andrade in the eighth, but Cole Stasio worked a scoreless ninth to seal the series-clinching victory for the Bears.

In game two, Baylor's Will Rigney turned in a career-high four innings of work on the mound and added six strikeouts, also a career-high, in his first start of 2022. Both teams got on the scoresheet in the first inning, though the score would remain tied at 1 until the fourth.

After Andrade led off the frame with a walk, a Duke wild pitch advanced him to second and Cardoza-Oquendo later sacrificed him over to third. Another wild pitch allowed the sophomore to score and put BU ahead, 2-1.

DU answered with a run of its own in the top of the fifth to knot the score at 2-2 and put two more up in the eighth thanks to a solo home run and a run-scoring walk. The Bears were unable to get to DU's Jimmy Loper, who pitched the final three innings and allowed just two hits with five punchouts.

NOTES
• Baylor is now 4-1 all-time against Duke, including a 2-1 mark against the Blue Devils under seventh-year head coach Steve Rodriguez.
• BU earned its first series win of the season.
• The Bears are 2-1 this season against ranked opponents.
• Baylor produced its largest win (+9) since May 9, 2021 (23-3 vs. Kansas State).
• Sophomore OF Jared McKenzie has now reached base in 13-straight games, dating back to last season.
• Junior INF Jack Pineda has now reached base in 10 consecutive games, dating back to 2021.
• Pineda, McKenzie and Esteban Cardoza-Oquendo each tallied multi-hit and multi-RBI games.
• Pineda's and Cardoza-Oquendo's three-RBI outputs are single-game highs for the Bears this year.
• Senior RHP Jake Jackson collected his first win of the season, and first as a Bear.
• Sophomore RHP Will Rigney notched career-highs with four innings pitched and six strikeouts.
• Sophomore INF Beau Wimpee made his season debut.
 
STAT OF THE GAME
13 – The Bears sent 13 batters to the plate in a seven-run sixth inning in game one of the doubleheader.

TOP QUOTES
Head coach Steve Rodriguez
On today's starting pitching…
"I was really happy with what Jake Jackson did for us early on and having Will Rigney go out there and get a quality start for us is also great. Jake went out and did a great job for us, then Will going the innings that he did was quality. It was great to get him out there, be able to see what he can do and the effectiveness he had. I was really happy with both of them and how they gave us a chance to win both games."

Senior RHP Jake Jackson
On his performance today and his first win as a Bear…
"It means a lot. Obviously, getting that first one under the belt, now it's time to go on a roll and pick up as many wins as we can. It felt really good. The guys gave me a ton of run support, so hats off to them. They supported me, so I wanted to give it all I got and support them. I leave everything on my sleeve – you're going to know if I make a bad pitch and you're going to know if I make a good pitch to strike a guy out. I'm not afraid to pitch with emotion and come off the mound with my kind of swagger. In my mind, that helps get the team's energy going and keep us on the right path."

Sophomore OF Jared McKenzie
On winning the weekend series…
"I think coming off this weekend, we put the weekend that we had against Maryland behind us, took what happened and learned from it. And you look now, we still have a lot to work on, but to know that we can come out here and compete and be in ballgames and win a series against a ranked opponent is really neat."

WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor (4-3) heads to Houston for a Wednesday night contest on March 2 at Rice (2-5), with first pitch set for 6:30 p.m. at Reckling Park.
 
For the latest news on the Baylor baseball team all season long, follow its official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts: @BaylorBaseball.