No. 20 Maryland baseball vs. Penn State series preview

No. 20 Maryland baseball (35-18, 15-6 B1G) travels to Penn State this weekend (24-23, 6-14 B1G) for its final series of the regular season. 

“I think this is the weekend you’re gonna have to execute and do some of the little things right if you want to win on the road,” coach Rob Vaughn said. 

The Terps enter the series tied in first place in the Big Ten, looking to clinch their second consecutive Big Ten regular season championship. Maryland is tied with Indiana for first place, but holds a head-to-head tiebreaker over the Hoosiers after a sweep in Bloomington earlier in the season. 

The Terps will face a struggling Nittany Lions unit, 1-10 in their past 11 games and on an eight-game losing streak. Penn State will have nothing to lose, being eliminated from the Big Tournament contention prior to the series start. The Nittany Lions have faced a gauntlet of a conference schedule the past three weeks, with a 1-7 record against a combined 39-23 opponent conference record.

The biggest struggle the past few weeks for Penn State has been its pitching staff, throwing a collective 7.36 ERA in its conference games the past three weeks. The Nittany Lions also gave up 16 earned runs in six innings against Omaha in a midweek battle May 10th.

Junior Travis Luensmann has seen the most time on the mound for Penn State with 59.1 innings. The right-hander enters the weekend with a 3.94 ERA and 1.47 WHIP, earning himself a 6-4 record. Leunsmann’s .230 opponent batting average is the eighth-best in the conference. 

Just like Penn State, Maryland’s pitching staff is one of the worst in the conference. The Terps’ collective 6.06 ERA is second-worst in the conference, ahead of only the 8-38 Northwestern. To make matters worse, the pitching staff has been dealing with injuries as of late. 

Senior right-hander and weekend starter Nick Dean has dealt with forearm soreness the past few weeks, resulting in two poor outings against Nebraska and Minnesota with a combined 9 ERA. Dean should be able to go against Penn State and the team will take his injury one day at a time, according to Vaughn.

Freshman left-hander and starter Kyle McCoy is dealing with forearm tightness, which held him out the past weekend against Minnesota. McCoy struggled against Nebraska in his last outing with injury, pitching in 2.2 innings and giving up eight earned runs. McCoy will be a gametime decision and would likely play in the later half of the weekend for Maryland, according to Vaughn.

“We’ll see what it looks like and keep him plugging away and hopefully get him in for a few hours at some point this weekend,” Vaughn said. “If he can be effective and he feels like he can go, we’ll plug him in for a little bit.”

The Terps have little to worry about offensively, averaging the most runs in the Big Ten (9.71 runs per game). Maryland has one of the best power hitting groups among Division I schools, smashing the second-most home runs and recording the third-best slugging percentage. 

Senior third baseman Nick Lorusso and junior shortstop Matt Shaw are two of Maryland’s most explosive bats, and the duo have been battling each other to set the all-time RBI record at Maryland. Shaw currently has the lead with 161 all-time RBIs, with Lorusso one short. 

“They keep pushing each other and we’re going to need them down the stretch here as we go into this last weekend of the regular season and then the conference tournament,” Vaughn said. “We’re gonna need those guys to do their job and drive runs in and be our best players.”

First pitch of the series between the conference foes is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Thursday at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. Friday’s first pitch is set for 5 p.m., while Saturday’s is a bit earlier at noon.