Maryland baseball’s pitching woes leads to 12-1 loss to Michigan

Maryland baseball took an early lead in its win over Michigan on Friday. That didn’t happen in game two of the series.

A Collin Priest opposite-field home run gave the Wolverines an early lead in the bottom of the second. Priest spearheaded an eight-run inning, pushing the Terps into a large deficit they failed to get out of.

Maryland couldn’t secure a second straight comeback win, falling to Michigan in Ann Arbor on Saturday, 12-1. The Terps’ pitching struggled mightily, allowing double-digit runs for just the second time this season.

“The first inning, we had a chance to punch them in the mouth,” coach Matt Swope said. “Eddie bunted…[but] I want him to hit; he’s on fire right now.” 

Maryland’s (20-7, 3-2 Big Ten) starting pitchers have been a strength coming into the weekend series. Kenny Lippman and Logan Koester had failed to pitch at least four innings just once in 12 combined starts. But neither reached that mark in the Terps’ first two games against Michigan.

The Wolverines (10-17, 3-2 Big Ten) attacked Lippman early and often in counts, forcing him out after 3.1 innings pitched on Friday. They applied the same strategy to Koester in Saturday’s contest, scoring eight runs against him in only 1.1 innings pitched.

Koester breezed through the first inning. Then Michigan’s bats attacked him.

Priest got the offense started with his home run. Back-to-back hits from Dylan Stanton and Cole Caruso over the next two at bats doubled the lead. 

Michigan extended its advantage with the bases loaded later in the bottom of the second. A pair of hard-hit balls from AJ Garcia and Mitch Voit scored four runs, and Stephen Hrustich crushed a two-run home run to straight-away center field to expand the Wolverines’ lead to 8-0 and end Koester’s disastrous start.

“That’s just baseball sometimes,” Swope said. “You give up an eight spot in the second inning, there’s not many games you’re going to come back from that.”

Koester entered the day with a team-leading 2.72 ERA and had pitched at least seven innings in three of his last four starts. Koester had done a lot of his damage by inducing weak contact in his prior start, but Michigan took advantage of Koester pitching to contact and drove the ball all over the field.

The Wolverines continued to add to their lead in the fourth inning — this time against the Terps’ bullpen — as Stanton and Caruso again produced back-to-back hits, driving in two runs to inflate the lead to 10-0. A pair of sacrifice flies gave Michigan’s offense a 12-run outing.

The Wolverines got production from nearly everyone in their lineup. Eight of their nine hitters recorded at least one RBI and seven of their nine starters notched at least one hit. Every starter reached base.

Jacob Denner entered his fourth start of the season for Michigan with a 6.66 ERA. He dominated Maryland’s lineup despite his prior struggles, allowing just 3 hits through 7.2 innings and striking out six.

The Terps were without star freshman Chris Hacopian. His absence hurt the Maryland offense. Hacopian entered the contest leading Maryland in home runs and was tied for first among its usual starters in on-base percentage. 

Devin Russell’s solo home run in the top of the fifth was the only positive for the lineup. Russell and Kevin Keister were the lone starters to record a hit.

Maryland will look to bounce back and secure its 24th straight series win with a victory on Sunday.

“It’s hard to sweep,” Swope said. “We’ll come out, and we’ll do whatever we can tomorrow to try and win a series. We’ll see what we got with Chris coming back tomorrow, but if not, we gotta have a next-man mentality.”