Maryland baseball came up short in their series opener against Minnesota on Friday evening, falling 10-7 as its pitching dug a hole the bats couldn’t escape.
Nick Dean tossed up a shaky start, setting the stage for Maryland’s hit-or-miss relief crew. Though he walked away with five strikeouts, Dean oversaw a parade of Minnesota hits as the Gophers scored with ease from the very beginning.
Both teams combined for seven home runs, but the Terps only managed seven total hits as they failed to stave off the Gophers. The top of the Maryland batting order did their job as Luke Shliger, Matt Shaw and Nick Lorusso racked up four hits, four runs and four RBI, but they lacked the overall 1-9 consistency they’ve grown famous for. Outside of a mammoth five-run fifth inning, the Terps only got anything across the plate in one other frame.
“They were just better,” Maryland coach Rob Vaughn said. “They executed, they had big hits. When that team plays like that, they’re tough. Seven [runs] was a pretty good effort, but for those guys, seven wasn’t enough tonight.”
The Terps (33-18, 13-6 in Big Ten) lost 9-2 in their midweek finale against Northeastern, which blasted four home runs off of the Maryland pitching unit in the rout. Kenny Lippman was handed his first loss of the season after the Huskies smacked him around in the first three innings for a rapid-fire 4-0 lead, giving the Terps something to motivate themselves within an attempt to maintain their 20 series-long Big Ten win streak. This recent loss tied them with Indiana for the conference lead.
The Gophers (15-31, 8-11 in Big Ten) strutted into College Park coming off of a rare weekend victory against a conference opponent after stealing two of three games from Michigan. One of the bottom dwellers of the Big Ten, Minnesota hasn’t had a lot going for them before Friday. Though its pitching held up against the Wolverines, only two qualified Minnesota position players have posted a batting average above .300, and not one has an OPS above .900.
Maryland, host to one of the most dynamic lineups in college baseball, got the party started in the first inning as Matt Shaw’s double set up Nick Lorusso’s two-run homer to give the Terps a quick lead.
Unfortunately for the home team, the Gophers managed a rapid-fire response to temporarily put the game in their hands. Dean loaded the bases on three straight hits to start the second inning, and came close to escaping the situation scot-free with a pair of strikeouts before letting up a two-out, base-clearing double to Riley Swenson for a 3-2 Minnesota lead.
The Maryland offense looked listless until a monster fourth inning when they finally exploded for a pair of home runs off the bats of Kevin Keister and Shaw to bring in five total baserunners. That put the Terps right back in the thick of the game with a sudden 7-6 lead, but that didn’t last.
Dean exited before the start of the fifth inning after giving up six earned runs and seven hits, and Nate Haberthier didn’t exactly right the ship in his relief appearance. He nearly instantly allowed two more long balls to give a 9-7 advantage right back to the Gophers, and Vaughn yanked him before he could complete the frame.
“We just had really bad counts,” Vaughn said, always keeping an eye on Dean as he comes back from hamstring tightness. “[Dean] definitely doesn’t feel 100%. The velocity was down tonight, that tells you he probably didn’t feel awesome.”
Nigel Belgrave took the mound as the Terps’ third pitcher of the evening and looked to be the only Maryland pitcher with any kind of groove until the eighth inning. David Falco Jr. gave up one more run in his two innings of work, but the Maryland offense never closed the gap despite the opportunities presented to them in the 10-7 defeat.
The loss marked the first time Maryland lost double-digit games in over a month, and brought Indiana that much closer to the Big Ten crown as the Terps’ lead shrunk to 0.5 games ahead on the 1 seed.
“I just talked to our guys afterwards, I just told them ‘just go play baseball,’” Vaughn said. You’re not winning the Big Ten tomorrow, you’re not going to the NCAA tomorrow. Let’s go and just play baseball.”
The Terps will get their chance to even the series tomorrow at 2 p.m.
