How Jalin Flores' mindset helped Texas baseball take SEC series from Georgia

Texas baseball shortstop Jalin Flores walked to the plate in the seventh inning of Saturday's game against Georgia with a stat line full of mishaps.

He'd committed an error in the first inning that enabled the Bulldogs to plate the game's first run. And he's struck out in all three of his at-bats, giving him five whiffs in the series.

So what was the Longhorns' star feeling as he dug in with two runners on and Texas down by two runs?

"Those at-bats happened a second ago, a million years ago, so they don't really affect you going into the next one," Flores said. "Knowing that those two guys got on before me, the crowd was into it at that moment, I'm just trying to have fun and play baseball and do my job as well."

Flores roped a 3-1 pitch from Georgia's Kolten Smith off the wall in center field, scoring both Easton Winfield and Ethan Mendoza and erasing what had been a four-run deficit for the Longhorns.

Fun achieved.

Will Gasparino followed up with another two-run double two batters later, giving the Longhorns the lead for good in a game they eventually won 7-4.

Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle praised Flores for his professionalism on Friday night, when he made a handful of key defensive plays despite taking an ugly 0-for-4 at the plate. The same traits helped him deliver in a crucial moment for the Longhorns (25-4, 10-1 SEC) on Saturday after six difficult innings.

"He's a professional," Schlossnagle said Saturday. "He doesn't feel good, he has emotions too. But he's got (assistant coach Troy Tulowitzki) there, and Troy helps him through all that stuff. But part of being a real player is being able to separate defense from offense, and knowing that the most important at-bat you have is the next at-bat."

Together with Gasparino, Flores completed the comeback that Jaquae Stewart began when he launched a two-run homer to right for his first career long ball. That big swing came in the fifth inning, and served as Texas' first hit of the game against Georgia starter Brian Curley, who had been dominating.

By contrast, Texas starter Luke Harrison struggled early. He gave up four runs ‒ three of which were earned ‒ in the first four innings.

With the way the two starting pitchers were trending, Schlossnagle already had Sunday's game in mind as he managed his pitching staff.

"The decision was to leave Harrison in there and not burn (Max) Grubbs and have him ready for tomorrow, but then Stewart hit the homer and kind of gave us a little life," Schlossnagle said.

And Harrison did enough to keep the Longhorns close. He struck out a career-high nine Bulldogs (29-4, 8-3) in 5⅔ innings of work before Schlossnagle finally went to Grubbs. He kept Georgia, which leads the country in home runs, within UFCU Disch-Falk Field's outfield walls, too.

"I think mixing it up, just keeping them off-balance was going well for me," Harrison said. "Using the cutter, slider and introduced a curveball today, so that was fun."

Grubbs stranded a Georgia baserunner in the sixth, then needed just 10 batters to record nine outs as he secured the win and lowered his ERA to 1.27 on the season.

His work, and the length provided by Harrison, allowed the Longhorns to keep swingman Ruger Riojas rested. He'll get the start for Texas as it looks for the sweep on Sunday (2 p.m., SEC Network+).

Reach Texas Insider David Eckert via email at deckert@gannett.com. Follow the American-Statesman on Facebook and X for more. Your subscription makes work like this possible. Get access to all of our best content with this tremendous offer.