Maryland baseball’s pitching has been suspect all season, and they completely imploded with their chances at the Big Ten Tournament on the line.
After a low-scoring affair Friday night, which ended with a 2-1 loss to Michigan, the Terps looked to bounce back after a big performance from Cristopher Cespedes.
However, the Terps’ pitching imploded and gave up thirteen runs in four innings to get defeated 17-5, a run-rule victory by Michigan, officially losing the series.
The Terps went to Brayden Ryan on the bum,p and he gave up one run in the first that was unearned, an error which was one of two Terp errors on the day.
“There’s just not much to say, you just gotta get a better star,t man,” Coach Matt Swope.
The second, a Ty Kaunas spiked throw to third base, while trying to pick off the lead run, ner caused some boos at the Bob Turtle Smith Stadium.
“I mean, you are trying to get the lead guy, and that’s just elementary stuff, you can’t shoot yourself in the foot and give them a free out,” Swope said.
Ryan then followed up, starting the second with a strikeout. He then let up nine straight Wolverine hits as they plated a whopping nine runs in the second to put the Terps in run-rule territory early on. After a hitless first three innings, the Terps clawed back into the game, drawing five walks in their half of the first, highlighted by an RBI single by Paul Jones II. Maryland was able to cross four runs across the plate as the game simmered down.
“I talked a lot with the hitters in the middle innings about just staying on the process and if you wanna be successful, you gotta stay on the process and I thought they did a really good job in that three or four run inning,” Swope said.
The Wolverines had tagged Jake Yeager for a three-run shot by Colby Turner, who had just had his 26-game on-base streak to make it 13-0 in the top of the fourth, but they then went scoreless in the next two.
The Terps continued to claw back as they loaded the bases in the sixth with nobody on and were able to plate a run, but came up empty with the next two batters both getting struck out.
Quinn Yelin came in for the Terps out of the bullpen and immediately gave up another three-run bomb to Turner, who went four for six in the ballgame with seven RBIs.
The Terps promptly went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the eighth to hand the Wolverines the series win.
“I mean, we are banged, we just have to do better. We are going through it with injuries, until we are mathematically eliminated from the tournament, we are going to keep doing our business,” Swope said.
In a year where the Terps have been abysmal in conference play, losing seven out of eight conference series, this loss was especially frustrating given that it was all but over after an inning and a half.
