| Senior Ryan Rummel reached base in all three of his plate appearances and had two RBIs on Wednesday night. |
WACO — Dan Evatt came home on a D.D. Towler wild pitch in the sixth and Baylor rallied for a rain-shortened 4-3 victory against UTSA in seven innings on Wednesday night at Baylor Balpark.
Evatt started the game-winning rally with a one-out walk, moved to third on Tyler Collins' single to left center one hitter later and raced home when a Towler 1-0 pitch was out of the reach of senior catcher Jeff Taliaferro.
The Bears won for the eighth time in their last nine outings and improved to 12-7 overall, while the Roadrunners (9-10) lost their third contest in a row and fell below the .500 mark for the first time this season.
Josh Turley (3-0), the sixth of seven Baylor pitchers to toe the rubber on the night, picked up his third win of the year with a perfect inning of relief. Meanwhile, Willie Kempf struck out the side in the seventh for his first save of the year.
Towler (1-3) was tagged with the loss after surrendering a pair of marks on two hits and walk in his 1.1 frames of work.
The Birds got the scoring underway in the opening inning when senior Ryan Rummel delivered a two-run bloop single that was just out of the reach of Baylor shortstop Landis Ware. That brought home sophomore Jason Mohn, who reached on a fielding error by Ware, and junior Ryan Hutson, who doubled two batters later.
Baylor cut the lead in half in the bottom of the frame when Joey Hainsfurther delivered a run-scoring hit to left, but UTSA extended the lead back to two in the second when Taliaferro, who led off the frame with a two-bagger, came home on an errant pick-off attempt to third base by Bears catcher Gregg Glime.
The lead was trimmed to one again in the third when Logan Vick greeted Roadrunners right-handed reliever Mike Pierce with a lead-off home run down the left-field line off for his fourth long ball of year. Brooks Pinckard then tied the contest two innings later with his first homer of the spring.
Collins led the Bears with his 3-for-3 performance, while Hainsfurther and Vick added two hits apiece.
Rummel continued his torrid pace at the plate, going 2-for-2 with a walk and two RBIs. The Uvalde native now is 17-for-36 (.472) with four doubles, a triple, two homers and 10 RBIs since entering the starting lineup on March 6 at San Francisco. He also has reached base at a .525 clip and slugged .806 during that 10-game stretch.
Junior lefty Justin Martinez made his first start as a Roadrunner and allowed just one run while scattering five singles in his two innings of work.
UTSA hosts Sam Houston State (8-13, 3-3 SLC) in the opener of a three-game Southland Conference series at 6 p.m. on Friday at the Bird Bath. The Roadrunners have swept the Bearkats in each of the last four seasons and won 12 of the last 13 regular-season matchups overall.