Jace Jung Has a Literal Lightning Rod For a Bat

Jace Jung has four games this season when he's hit multiple home runs in the game. In two of the games, he went deep twice and in the other two games, he went deep three times. The first time Jung hit three home runs in a game was to open the series against Kansas State when Texas Tech hit six total home runs and won 17-1.

Today was Jung's second time. The Red Raiders beat TCU 17-7 to win the series after losing game one after a rough first inning and walking off game two with a walk-off home run from Cal Conley.

Back to Jung, he's hitting .405 this season in 28 games with 44 RBI and 15 home runs. He gets on base in half of his at-bats and his slugging percentage is nearly .800 that's an OPS of nearly 1.300! Simply stated, Jung is a top 5 hitter in college baseball and his 15 home runs are tied for the most in all of college baseball.

Did I mention he hit three more today? Including two in one inning.

TCU came into Lubbock undefeated in Big 12 play and leaves with a 7-2 record. Texas Tech adds two more Big 12 wins to their record to move to 5-4. In the Big 12, Texas Tech trails Texas, TCU, and Oklahoma State, but the Big 12 standings don't really matter when it comes to tournament seeding.

The NCAA will announce the 16 regional sites on May 10th, instead of the traditional post-season selection show. The rationale is that the regional sites will need time to set up COVID protocols. That leaves Texas Tech with three Big 12 series against West Virginia, Baylor, and Texas before the NCAA announces the sites. The Red Raiders will then finish their season and theoretically try to win a Big 12 title against Oklahoma and Kansas after already knowing their NCAA tournament status.

If the Red Raiders can lock in a top-eight seed by May 10th, they were listed as a 4 seed in the initial bracket by d1baseball last week, then Lubbock will also host a Super Regional whether the Red Raiders are there or not.

If Jace Jung continues to hit a home run every third hit he whacks, I'd say the Red Raiders have the upper hand in locking in a top-eight seed.