Nebraska pitching woes continue as they drop series-opener
Nebraska’s (20-23, 4-10) poor pitching and lack of early game offense leads to a 15-7 loss in the series-opener against Maryland (20-25, 6-9) on Friday night.
After a disappointing sophomore season for Matt Waldron (2-5 4.09 ERA), he has returned his junior season to be a solid pitching option for a team that has struggled to find consistency. Although, Friday night wasn’t his or the team’s best showing.
“His stuff wasn’t nearly what it was last week,” head coach Darin Erstad said. “It wasn’t just awful, so then the game just gets away from you there, yeah, you get your butt kicked.”
The scoring at Haymarket was off to a fast start as Maryland junior left fielder Marty Costes slugged a solo homerun to the center field wall to make it a 1-0 Terrapin lead.
Following a low-action half-inning by the Huskers, the Terrapins continued in stride. After a walk and a single, Maryland freshman Randy Bednar hit a RBI double to make it a 2-0 Terrapin lead. MD would make it a 3-0 lead heading into the bottom half of the inning thanks to a sac-fly.
The man of the day for the Terrapins was Costes as he hit his second solo home run in the top of the third to extend it to a 4-0 Maryland lead. It’s the first time a Nebraska opponent has hit two homeruns in the same game since Joe Hoscheit from Northwestern did it back on April 9, 2016.
Nebraska would get some offense going in the bottom of the third. Sophomore Mojo Hagge hit a ball to center-field, but Maryland lost it in the sun. Hagge would triple on the play and the Huskers would get their first run of the day. NU’s Scott Schreiber would hit a sac-fly to plate another Husker run.
NU held Maryland off until the sixth inning before the game started to crack open. Maryland would get two men on second and third thanks to a walk, a hit batter and a bunt. That’s when Nebraska senior Zac Repinski threw the ball home to try and get a runner out, but the ball was thrown too hard and MD was able to plate two more to extend the lead 6-2.
Matt Waldron’s day would be done after the sixth inning. He threw 96 pitches and finished with a line of 4 H, 5 ER and 8 K’s. He was replaced by his brother Mike Waldron (6.94 ERA).
The pitching collapsed under the weight of the Terrapin offense in the seventh inning. Maryland was able to garner five hits and five runs in the seventh. The inning was capped off with a three-run home run by junior Taylor Wright to make it a 11-2 lead.
“(Mike) has got to win with his height,” Erstad said. “He’s not going to overpower them, so his off-speed stuff has to be down and it wasn’t down.”
NU would take advantage of a Terrapin error to plate another run in the seventh to make it a 11-3 game. Catcher Jesse Wilkening was able to get his third hit of the day as he smashed a RBI double to left center to make it 11-4.
“It has been basically the same stuff all year. We make a couple errors. It’s just tough,” Roskam said.
MD was able to put up four more runs in the eighth after NU pitching continues its inconsistent season from the bullpen. In the last three innings, the Huskers had four pitchers that combined to allow nine hits, nine earned runs and had one strikeout.
Nebraska third baseman Luke Roskam was able to clobber a three-run homerun in the bottom of the ninth to make it 15-7. That was his fifth homerun of the season.
Nebraska returns to action on Saturday at 2:05 p.m for game two against Maryland. Nebraska senior right hander Luis Alvarado (3-5, 3.19 ERA, 62.0 IP, 58 K) will take on Maryland junior right-hander Hunter Parsons (4-2, 3.01 ERA, 71.2 IP, 50 K).
“We got to turn the page, it doesn’t matter if we lose by one or one hundred. You got to be ready to go. We aren’t in a good situation, so all we are going to do is come back tomorrow ready to go,” Erstad said.
Here is the latest B1G Baseball standings. The top eight make the tournament at season's end.
