Texas Tech University Athletics
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Mississippi State
Braden, Brady Lead Texas Tech Past Mississippi State 10-6
June 04, 2004 | Baseball
June 4, 2004
ATLANTA, Ga. - Texas Tech rode the arm of Dallas Braden and the hot bat of Josh Brady as the Red Raiders defeated Mississippi State 10-6 in the opening game of the NCAA Atlanta Regional on Friday afternoon in front of 1,540 fans at Russ Chandler Stadium.
Junior left-hander Dallas Braden had his best outing of the season today as he struckout a career-high 11 batters and was one out away from a complete game. Josh Brady, who became a father on Tuesday of this week, went 4-for-5 with four RBI and picked up his 20th home run of the season and ran his season RBI tally to 88.
Texas Tech (39-19) took advantage of back-to-back fielding errors by Mississippi State in the bottom of the second that led to four runs. Bulldog first baseman Brad Jones dropped consecutive throws allowing Josh Haney and Madison Edwards to reach base and Ryan Andrews brought in Tech's first run with an RBI single that bounced over the head of the MSU third baseman. Junior first baseman Josh Brady delivered the biggest blow of the inning when he laced a two-RBI single to right field allowing Edwards and Andrews to score. Second baseman Jose Delgado plated Tech's final run of the inning when he hit an RBI triple to the gap in left-center field.
Mississippi State (34-23) plated a single run in the top of the third on an RBI double by right fielder Joseph Hunter. Tech, however, answered the Bulldogs run in the third with two more runs in the bottom of the fourth. The two runs came on a two-run homer by Josh Brady that he launched over the fence in right-center.
Tech broke the game open in the bottom of the sixth with a three-run inning to push the lead to 9-2. Delgado picked up his second RBI of the game with a single and junior shortstop Cameron Blair notched a two-RBI double for his only hit of the game.
Mississippi State finally chased away Braden with two outs in the ninth as Brad Corley hit a three-run home run that was part of four runs for the Bulldogs in that frame. Tech reliever John Milton ended the game in the next at-bat when he drew catcher Craig Tatum into an infield groundout.
Braden improved to 6-4 on the season with today's win as he allowed six earned runs on 13 hits but struckout 11 in 8 2/3 innings. Alan Johnson took the loss for Mississippi State as he gave up five earned runs on nine hits in 5 1/3 innings of work.
Texas Tech will meet the winner of Friday night's game between Georgia Tech and Jacksonville State at 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon at Russ Chandler Stadium.
