No. 19 Maryland baseball (33-17, 13-5 B1G) will take host to Minnesota (14-31, 7-11 B1G) this weekend for its final home series of the regular season.
The Terps were riding an eight-game win streak entering this past weekend’s series against Nebraska, but they’ve skidded a bit since, going 2-2 in three games against the Cornhuskers and one game against Northeastern.
Nebraska’s win on Saturday was a slim one, a 12-10 victory, before Maryland bounced back on Sunday for a huge 20-run performance. But the loss to the Huskies on Tuesday wasn’t nearly as competitive, as the Terps scored an uncharacteristic two runs and allowed nine.
The two runs tied the Terps’ lowest run output since March 24, when they scored the same amount against UCF. They have been held under three runs just three times this season, losing 5-1 to Ole Miss on March 3 in the other instance.
Coach Rob Vaughn often cites winning the small moments as the most important factor in games: Making key defensive stops, coming up with timely hits and placing pitches in the right spots. The Terps failed to do those things on Tuesday, putting together just five hits while allowing the first two hitters in Northeastern’s lineup to combine for five hits and six runs batted in.
“Most of the games are not like the Sunday game against Nebraska,” Vaughn said. “We’re not gonna play many games like that. Most of them are gonna be a pitch here, a play there, a swing here, and we just gotta be on the right end of that if we want to get it done.”
Maryland will look to get back to its roots this weekend of being an explosive offensive group. It ranks 18th in the country in batting average (.312), second in home runs (109) and fourth in runs per game (9.6). It has 23 more homers and 97 more RBIs than the next-closest program among Big Ten schools.
“We’ve gotta come out and be offensive again,” Vaughn said. “If we’re gonna win the league and do what we’re capable of doing, we’ve gotta take care of business at home.”
On the other side, Minnesota ranks dead last in the conference in nearly every offensive category. It has smashed 25 home runs — less than one-quarter of the Terps’ total — and 182 RBIs, along with a league-worst .247/.342./360 slash line. Riley Swenson and Weber Neeis are the only two Golden Gophers with at least five home runs on the season, with six and five, respectively. They also have only two players hitting above a .260 batting average.
Vaughn mentioned Tucker Novotny and George Klassen, the Gophers’ presumed Friday and Saturday starters, as two arms his club will have to respect due to their live-action fastballs and deceptive deliveries. But both arms currently sport subpar numbers, as Novotny holds a 4.74 earned run average and Klassen’s sits at 5.07.
This weekend should be a prime opportunity for Maryland to pad its first-place lead in the Big Ten, as despite sweeping Indiana two weekends ago, the Hoosiers remain just one game behind it in the conference standings. The Terps are looking to repeat as Big Ten regular season champions after winning a program-best 44 regular season games in 2022.
With the recent struggles of starters Jason Savacool and Kyle McCoy — who allowed five and eight earned runs, respectively, against Nebraska — plus the lingering forearm tightness of Nick Dean, the Terps will rely on their offense to power them through yet another weekend series. The pitching staff will look to gain health and find its stride as the Big Ten tournament rapidly approaches on May 23.
First pitch on Friday is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., while Saturday’s is 2:30 and Sunday’s is 12:00. All three games will be played at Bob “Turtle” Smith Stadium.
