No. 19 Maryland baseball bounced back big time on Saturday evening, smothering Minnesota in a 14-5 victory. The second game of the Terps’ final home series of the season was everything Game 1 wasn’t: offensive excellence from start to finish, and elite pitching from Jason Savacool to boot.
Two Terps matched or exceeded Scott Patterson’s 35-year-old program RBI record of 157 in one outing, and it was the same two who’ve been neck and neck statistically all spring. Nick Lorusso passed the checkpoint with 158 and counting, but Matt Shaw lurks just behind with one short of the third baseman to tie Patterson.
“What Lo[russo]’s done, it’s kind of wild. That guy’s been here for two years and he just broke the RBI record. That’s unbelievable,” Maryland coach Rob Vaughn said. “Really happy for him. I tossed him the ball at the end and said ‘I’m sure I’m gonna get Matty Shaw one here in a day or so. Watching those guys go back and forth with each other is pretty awesome.
The Maryland bats came and went yesterday, but the Terps, now tied with Indiana at the top of the Big Ten, weren’t going to make that mistake again. They scored 13 runs in a three inning span, with five different position players taking home multiple RBI to tie the weekend series at 1-1.
Savacool more than pulled his weight on the pitching front, gutting out six innings on 107 total pitches. He turned in his best outing in a month on his first Saturday start of the season, as Vaughn continues to tinker with his pitching rotation with only one week left in the regular season.
“Jason was really good,” Vaughn said. “Made some good pitches when he needed to, thought his composure was really good out there. That’s several starts in a row I thought Jason’s been in control of everything going on.”
The Terps fell flat on their faces yesterday against the Gophers on Friday night, conceding a 10-7 victory against their statistically inferior opponent. Nick Dean, still very much dealing with forearm tightness, threw a lackluster four innings while letting up two of Minnesota’s four home runs, and the critically acclaimed Maryland lineup lacked their typical top-to-bottom consistency as they failed to string hits together outside of a mammoth five-run fourth inning.
Saturday starter Savacool, who’s seen his numbers slip ever so slightly since the start of Big Ten play six weeks ago, torched the Gophers with three scoreless innings to start, collecting four strikeouts in the meantime.
Maryland’s offense thanked his early excellence by doing what they couldn’t on Friday by scoring early, and the whole lineup pulled their weight. Eddie Hacopian singled in Lorusso with several men on base in the first inning, and the Terps got right back at it again in the third. Lorusso created a run of his own by batting in Shaw, and Elijah Lambros rifled a single through an infield gap to bring two more runners aboard and beef the lead to 4-0.
Savacool stumbled for the first time in the top of the fourth when he gave up a long home run to Weber Neels, but the Maryland batters didn’t take long to reinforce their control. The Terps completed a five-run fourth frame for the second day in a row, with homers from Shaw and Woods putting the Terps well in front with a 9-1 cushion.
The Maryland offense refused to fizzle out after breaking the game wide open, and they continued to wage war against the Minnesota pitchers with yet another five-run inning to pump the lead to a comical 14-1. Woods teed off on his second dinger of the evening to headline a red-hot Maryland attack, as he’d finish the game with a team-high five RBI after going 0-3 at the plate yesterday.
“I think we’ve been pretty consistent,” Shaw said. “When you’re scoring 14 runs, you’re obviously seeing the ball well, you’re putting together good offense.”
Minnesota only really started getting to the dynamic Savacool in the sixth, cutting the deficit to 14-3 with the help of two Maryland fielding errors. He turned in his best performance since his start against Ohio State on April 14, racking up six strikeouts to complement only one earned run.
A third infield error enabled a fourth Minnesota run to cross the plate in the eighth, and Easton Fritcher tagged up on a Brady Counsell groundout in the ninth. The small-ball went for naught, though, as Caleb Estes hung on to seal the 14-5 win in his collegiate pitching debut.
“I thought we were really good for five innings, and then I thought our focus and energy wasn’t great to finish,” Vaughn said. “I’d like to see us play a complete game tomorrow, but I did think we were way, way better earlier in the game.”
The timely team performance prevented the Gophers from taking the series in the minimum two games, and gives the Terps a chance tomorrow at noon to extend their Big Ten series winning streak to 22.
