Baseball Swept by Lord Jeffs, Ephs, Falls to 1-5 in NESCAC

Middlebury’s bats were silent this past weekend at Amherst as the Panthers suffered a sweep at the hands of the Lord Jeffs, dragging their season record down to 4-10 (1-5 NESCAC). After returning from their annual spring trip to Arizona with a series loss against Williams, the Panthers are off to a slower start than anticipated.

On Friday, April 5, Amherst propelled to an 11-0 win on the momentum of the powerful performance by Jeffs’ starting pitcher Bob Cook. His effective pitch location and off-speed repertoire kept the potent Middlebury hitting line-up off balance throughout the game. Surrendering no hits and only one walk through the first eight innings, Cook’s no-hit bid was broken by a pinch-hit single by Steven Bodine ’16 with one out in the ninth.

Middlebury starter Eric Truss ’15 threw two strong innings before running into trouble. In the bottom of the third inning Amherst junior Alex Hero took Truss deep for a two-run home run. Then in the fourth inning Amherst tacked on four more runs, three of them unearned. Andy Dittrich ’13 provided two solid innings of relief before Amherst struck again for five more runs in the seventh.

First-year Sawyer Olson ’16 closed out the game for Middlebury with a hitless eighth inning, but the Panthers offense failed to score a run.

The Panthers rebounded for the first game of Saturday’s double-header with a strong pitching performance from Logan Mobley ’15. Mobley went the distance in the shortened, seven-inning game, scattering nine hits — seven of which were singles — and four runs (three earned) while striking out three and walking two.

Yet Middlebury’s offensive struggles continued, as the Panthers failed to capitalize in the second inning after getting the first two men on base, and racking just one hit through the first four innings. In the fifth, however, a pair of Amherst errors and three straight hits by Thomas Driscoll ’13, Michael Morris ’13 and Alex Kelly ’14 brought three runs to the plate to tie the game.

Unfortunately, the momentum promptly shifted in the bottom half of the inning with a leadoff triple by Amherst’s Taiki Kasuga followed by an RBI single by first-year Conner Gunn to bring in what would become the game-winning run as the Jeffs took game two by a score of 4-3.

In game three of the series, the Panthers again struggled against Amherst’s pitching, spraying seven hits over nine innings, but managed to score just one run. Kelly and Max Araya ’16 both went 2-4 with a single and double each, while junior Kyle Fink’s ’14 RBI groundout in the seventh drove in the Panthers’ sole run in an 11-1 loss.

Amherst’s nine-hitter Jonathan Ramirez had the Panthers’ number, driving in five of the Lord Jeffs’ 11 runs and collected a hit in each of his four at-bats. Mike Odenwaelder and Andrew Vandini also had multiple hits in the six- and seven-hole, respectively, for the Lord Jeffs making up for an underwhelming display by the top half of the lineup, which combined to go 4-19 in the game against Middlebury pitchers Cooper Byrne ’15, Mark Dickerson ’15 and John Popkowski ’13.

Two weekends ago at Williams, the Panthers picked up a 9-3 Friday win riding Eric Truss’s stellar complete-game, three-run, four-strike-out performance. Saturday did not fare as well, howewer, as Middlebury dropped the doubleheader with scores of 5-2 and 11-2, respectively. The scores do not reflect the performances of the Panther pitching staff, however, as less than half of the Ephs’ runs were earned in both games.

The Panthers’ offensive slump plagued this series as well with the team hitting .245 and scoring 13 runs total over the course of three games, significantly below the .355 batting and eight runs-per-game average racked up over the seven-game spring recess trip to Arizona. Yet despite the successes of Middlebury’s offense back in the warmer climate, the Panthers finished the trip 2-5, something Dittrich attributed to inconsistencies in the team’s offensive and defensive performances.

“[So far] our biggest weakness is the inability to put a full game together where both the pitching and hitting click at the same time,” said Dittrich. “[Besides] our second game against Amherst … the four other NESCAC games have unfortunately been pretty lopsided with either the pitching staff or hitters, or both struggling.”

However he remains positive in his outlook for the team, noting the steady improvements of the pitching staff since the Arizona trip which saw the Panthers allow 78 total runs in seven games. Now it’s the offense that needs to show similar improvement.

“The hitters have shown that we can score a lot of runs,” Dittrich said. “We as a team need to make small adjustments during games. Once we start to do that we should be putting ourselves in better opportunities to succeed.”

The baseball team got back on track on Tuesday, April 9, picking up a road win over Plattsburgh by a final score of 5-3. Dylan Sinnickson ’15 went two for four to pace the Panthers, including the game-tying RBI single in the eighth inning. Noah Bakker ’15 pitched four scoreless innings in relief to pick up the win for Middlebury.

The Panthers look to strike back against Hamilton this weekend with a three-game home series at Forbes Field.