Maryland Baseball heads to Rutgers for crucial Big Ten series

Photo courtesy of Chris Lyons/Maryland Athletics

Maryland baseball wraps up its four-game road trip with a crucial weekend series against Rutgers.

Maryland (29-17, 8-10 Big Ten) is currently riding a three-game winning streak, including two wins in College Park against Illinois — which was atop the Big Ten standings entering the matchup.

The Terps have made a habit of comebacks recently. They came back in their series against Illinois after dropping the first game and overcame a five-run deficit in their midweek game against Towson.

“That was a big series win,” Eddie Hacopian said on the Illinois series. “I think we just kind of got our swagger back…we’re winning close games [and] just playing cleaner baseball and quality baseball.”

Maryland enters its weekend series on a similar path as Rutgers. Maryland is ranked No. 40 in RPI — second among Big Ten teams — but an 8-10 conference record, puts them ninth in the Big Ten standings and outside of the Big Ten playoff picture.

Meanwhile, Rutgers (25-19, 3-12 Big Ten) ranks No. 60—fourth among Big Ten teams—but its 3-12 conference record leaves the Scarlet Knights 12th in the Big Ten standings.

Rutgers is led by its offense, scoring six or more runs in four of its last five games. The Scarlet Knights are a stingy bunch at the plate, leading the Big Ten in hits and featuring six starters with a batting average of over .300.

“The only way you can keep a good hitting team off balance is pitching ahead,” coach Matt Swope said. “One of Jimmy [Jackson’s] main keys is throwing two of the first three pitches for strikes. So we’ll try to keep ahead, get ahead and keep them off balance.”

Of all the quality hitters at Rutgers, Josh Kuroda-Grauer is the most prominent. The junior has at least one hit in 14 of his past 15 games and leads all starters in batting average (.432), on-base percentage (.502), and OPS (1.125). 

Rutgers is also aggressive on the basepaths. They lead the Big Ten with 74 stolen bases, allowing the Scarlet Knights to consistently put runners in scoring position.

Despite the team’s prominent hitting, Rutgers enters the weekend series on a six-game Big Ten losing streak. The team’s pitching has struggled recently, surrendering eight or more runs in five of its last six Big Ten games.

Despite the Scarlet Knight’s pitching woes, they have typically gotten quality Friday starts from Justin Sinibaldi. The senior has pitched at least six innings in all but two starts this season and has allowed two or fewer earned runs in all but three starts.

Throughout the season, the Rutgers’ pitching staff barely surpasses Maryland’s pitching, as they enter the series with a 5.79 ERA — just 0.06 better than Maryland’s — and a 1.48 WHIP. But recently, the Terps have allowed just five combined runs in the final three innings of their past four games.

Maryland’s last win against Towson highlighted that when Andrew Johnson and Nate Habertheir quieted a Towson offense that scored seven runs in the first two innings.

“It allows Kenny [Lippman],4 [Logan] Berrier and Evan [Smith], the guys we’ve been using on the pen and key situations at times, to rest the rest of the week and then have them ready for the weekend,” Swope said on using just two bullpen arms on Tuesday.

Maryland will look to use the rested bullpen to its advantage when the series begins at 6 p.m. on Friday. The series will wrap up on Saturday at noon and Sunday at 1 p.m.