Much of the story so far has been Joe Savery. To start with, the Rice lefthander took the field cradling a baby in his arms. That’s more than a little strange at any level of baseball, but kids take the field with Rice players for the national anthem at Sunday games, and apparently Savery had a friend who wanted his or her baby out on the field.

Formalities aside, Savery has been a hair off his ‘A’ game today. Working on a reported 75-pitch limit, Savery had thrown 45 pitches through three innings. His velocity sat at 88 mph in the first inning and has stayed there most of the day, although he did turn up the intensity and touch 92 in the second inning. He has displayed his ever-present athleticism by coming off the mound to record three assists in the first two innings.

On the other side of the ball, A&M-CC appeared to have first-inning jitters, as both left-side infielders air-mailed throws to first base, producing an early run. In the second inning, a Tyler Henley bunt plated Jordan Dodson, who opened the frame with an impressive opposite-field double.

The second run was the first earned salvo against A&M-Corpus lefthander Emerson Trager this year in 23 innings. He entered the game 3-0, with a .173 batting average against him and 17 strikeouts against only six walks in 21 innings pitched.