Baseball Drops Two of Three to Wesleyan

The Panthers played strong on Friday, April 19 beating Wesleyan 4-3, but dropped both games of the doubleheader Saturday, April 20, in a weekend series against the Cardinals at Forbes Field. Although Panthers moved to a 4-8 NESCAC record (9-14 overall) with three divisional series remaining on the season, head-to-head records within the NESCAC West division have sealed the playoff picture early with the Cardinals (7-2) and top-seeded Amherst (8-1) clinching the number-two and number-one berths, respectively, meaning that the Panthers will not compete in the playoffs.

Friday’s opener saw the continued trend of stellar Panther pitching as Eric Truss ’15 gave up just three runs on 11 hits to bring his season earned run average to a cool 3.96. He currently leads the pitching staff in wins.

Wesleyan struck first scoring on a sacrifice fly to center field in the top half of the first inning. A bunt single put two-hitter Andrew Lin on base and another single through the right side moved him into scoring position. Middlebury responded quickly with three straight hits in the bottom of the inning, the third a two-RBI single by Michael Morris ’13, to take the lead. But the Cardinals replied with a four-hit second inning that saw two men cross the plate to bring the game to 3-2 early.

That would prove to be all the damage that Wesleyan would do as Truss shut down the lineup for the remaining seven innings, scattering five hits and giving up just one walk in the third. The Panthers would score again in the bottom of the inning off of two hits and once more in the fourth on a Thomas Driscoll ’13 double, which would prove to be enough for the Panthers to take game one by a score of 4-3.

Middlebury’s offense was silenced for game two on Saturday, however, as the Panthers managed only two hits in the seven-inning game en route to a 6-0 shutout loss. Wesleyan’s Jeff Blout took the complete game win throwing nine strikeouts and two walks.

On the defensive side, five total errors — three of which came in the final two innings — tainted the solid pitching performances by seniors Tyler Buckingham ’13 and John Popkowski ’13. Buckingham took the loss after giving up four runs, none of which were earned, on two hits in five-and-two-thirds innings. In the sixth, the Cardinals tacked on three runs to a 1-0 lead off of two hits and two errors. Though that would prove to be more than enough against Middlebury’s struggling offense, Wesleyan added two more in the top of the seventh on three hits and another error to cap the game.

Saturday’s second game saw intense offensive action early from both sides, but the Panther bats dulled after the second inning and they dropped game two by a score of 8-4. In the bottom half of the first inning, Middlebury drove in three runs on two hits and a Wesleyan error, with RBIs by Hunter Merryman ’15, Dylan Sinnickson ’15 and Andrew Lind ’13. Wesleyan answered quickly in the top of the second with an offensive surge of four hits and four runs, but Middlebury tied it up at 4-4 in the bottom half of the inning.

The Panthers’ potent hitting unfortunately cooled after their two innings, managing just two hits throughout the rest of the game against reliever Sam Elias. Wesleyan, on the other hand, snatched three unearned runs off of two errors and two hits against Middlebury reliever Logan Mobley ’15 in the third before coasting to a win. Noah Bakker ’15 threw five strong relief innings after Mobley, giving up another run in the sixth to bring the game to what would be the final score.

The Panthers, though disappointed at missing the NESCAC playoffs for the 2013 season, nonetheless look to build upon the season’s pitching improvements and fine-tune their defense through the remainder of the season.

“[Our plan is to] win as many games as possible to end the season on a high note, leave the seniors ... with a good end for them, and get the younger players as much experience as possible,” Dittrich said. “I think with those three goals in mind we can find a happy medium and at least take some positives from this season and get the program headed in the right direction for the future.”

On Tuesday, April 23, the team split a weekday double-header against St. Michaels, losing the first 7-1 but came back to win the second game 7-0, riding a complete game shut-out from Baaker. Merryman led the Panthers with three hits, scoring two runs and batting in two more.

The Panthers will head out to Hartford for a double-header against Trinity this Saturday, April 27.