{"id":376695,"date":"2026-07-17T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/376695\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T11:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T11:00:09","slug":"texas-baseball-a-look-at-longhorns-first-half-of-the-2026-mlb-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/376695\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas baseball: A look at Longhorns’ first half of the 2026 MLB season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas baseball<\/a>\u00a0wasn’t represented at Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game in Philadelphia \u2014 the Longhorns’ last all-star was pitcher Bryce Elder<\/a> in 2023 \u2014 but that doesn’t mean the entire season hasn’t featured any burnt-orange highlights.<\/p>\n

The MLB schedule begins across the league Friday.<\/p>\n

Here’s a midseason update for former Texas players who have appeared in the big leagues this year:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Twins 1B Kody Clemens (83 games): .243 BA, 16 HRs, 46 RBIs, 45 runs<\/p>\n

\u2022 Braves RHP Bryce Elder (18 games): 5-6, 4.12 ERA, 86 Ks<\/p>\n

\u2022 Brewers INF David Hamilton (74 games): .240 BA, 31 runs, 18 SBs<\/p>\n

\u2022 Tigers RHP Ty Madden (seven games): 0-0, 3.15 ERA, 23 Ks<\/p>\n

\u2022 Cubs LHP Hoby Milner (38 games): 1-0, 3.53 ERA, 18 Ks<\/p>\n

\u2022 Phillies RHP Chase Shugart (26 games): 2-0, 4.97 ERA, 34 Ks\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 2026 MLB Draft took place over the weekend, and Carson Tinney<\/a> became the first Longhorn off the board when the catcher was taken by Minnesota with the 43rd overall pick. Former UT pitcher Greg Swindell, who was the 1986 draft’s second selection, remains the highest-drafted Longhorn of all time.<\/p>\n

Tinney, Aiden Robbins (New York Mets in the third round), Ruger Riojas<\/a> (Philadelphia in the third), Thomas Burns (Minnesota in the eighth), Luke Harrison (St. Louis in the eighth) and Cody Howard (Washington in the 13th) weren’t the only Texas ties to the MLB draft. Three former Longhorns were also drafted as Dee Kennedy (St. Louis), Will Gasparino (Philadelphia) and Cole Selvig (Miami) were respectively selected in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds.<\/p>\n

Five MLB teams drafted a Longhorn over the weekend, but the Athletics were not one of those franchises. The A’s last drafted a UT player in 2004 when Huston Street was the 40th overall pick, and that 22-year run of not drafting Longhorns is the longest active drought among MLB teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas baseball\u00a0wasn’t represented at Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game in Philadelphia \u2014 the Longhorns’ last all-star was pitcher Bryce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[131083,7677,38990,62623,27,29,537,20340,28],"class_list":["post-376695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-2026-mlb-draft","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-mlb-draft","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-baseball","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}