Maryland head coach Matt Swope walked to the mound making the sign to the bullpen to bring in a new arm. The small contingent of Maryland fans at Bob Hannah Stadium looked perplexed as Maryland’s usual Friday starter jogged to the mound.
Kenny Lippman pitched two innings allowing two runs on one hit as Maryland (24-14, 5-7 Big Ten) beat University of Delaware (18-17, 6-6 in CAA), 11-10, Tuesday evening.
Lippman allowed three earned runs in his Friday start this past weekend throwing 87 pitches across six innings. Lippman threw 40 pitches in his relief outing striking out a third of the batters he faced in the two innings he pitched.
“We’re gonna switch the rotation up this weekend,” Swope said. “So, we knew we’re going to put [Lippman] in the ‘pen so we knew we had a couple of pitches in him today.”
Ryan Van Buren and Logan Berrier combined to pitch the final three innings, all without surrendering a run, as a part of an aggressive pitching strategy employed by Swope.
“You’re going out there putting up zeros, it’s kind of just what all of our goals are,” Van Buren said postgame.
Maryland’s pitching ended the game allowing eight hits and nine walks while striking out ten. The Terps bullpen gave up six of the ten runs scored, allowing three hits.
Meade Johnson got the starting assignment following his first mid-week start of the season against UMBC last Wednesday. Johnson pitched well allowing only one run through the first three frames, but fell into trouble in the fourth.
The Blue Hens scored three runs in the inning turning Maryland’s 8-1 lead into an 8-4 advantage. Johnson walked three batters in the inning starting with the leadoff hitter, Aaron Graeber. A single followed and then Johnson got two outs bringing him an out away from escaping unscathed.
Bryce Greenly hit a two-out single to right field driving in a run. Eric Ludman followed that at-bat with a sky high pop up that slipped off the glove of Alex Calarco behind the plate, adding a second run via an error on the Terps’ catcher. Two more walks scored the third run of the inning. Johnson’s day ended after the inning being replaced by Nate Haberthier to start the fifth.
Luckily for Maryland’s pitching, the Terps offense ended their slight weekend skid scoring 11 runs in the game. The majority of the Terps’ offense came in the top of the third as they plated six runs in the half inning.
Maryland batted around in the half inning registering six hits and two walks, only one of the hits was for extra bases. The extra base hit was a two-run homer from Freshman Jordan Crosland, who blasted the ball over the wall in left center ending Maryland’s scoring in the inning. Crosland was the second Terp to homer in the game as Eddie Hacopian opened the scoring in the first with his own solo shot to left.
“I just think overall, he’s [Eddie] more comfortable, he’s confident and you can just kind of see he’s kind of come into his own in the last year,” Swope said.
Maryland’s lineup ended the game with 12 hits, only three for extra bases. The Terps walked six times and received four multi-hit performances from their starters.
“I’m really just more happy like how we came out, like came out scored a bunch of runs early, you know, in the first five or six innings, I think we got all our runs anyway,” Swope said. “So when I think you can do that you can, you know, it’s obviously as a pitcher nice to have a lead and have a little bit of a buffer and feel like you can attack.”
The win is a strong bounce back for the Terps who lost both of their mid-week games last week and came in losers of four of their last five. The win secures Maryland a two-game sweep of the Blue Hens this season.
Maryland will try to carry the momentum into its weekend series against Nebraska.
