Preview: Maryland baseball faces Georgetown and VCU in midweek contests

Maryland baseball (5-2) has started its season playing six of its seven games on the road this year. The Terps opened the season traveling to Georgia to face Georgia Southern, and last weekend they went to Texas to participate in the Kleberg Bank College Classic. 

The lone home game in Maryland’s schedule was its home opener against Mount St. Mary’s.

Despite all the time away from home, the Terps have gotten off to a respectable start and have begun to show how the team would respond this season after losing key pieces to last year’s team in the offseason. 

The biggest uncertainty coming into the season for Maryland was its offense. The Terps lost Matt Shaw, Nick Lorusso and Luke Shliger to the MLB Draft. They also lost Ian Petrutz to the transfer portal after former head coach Rob Vaughn left for Alabama.

“I think no matter what the turnover is, nobody’s going to feel bad for you,” coach Matt Swope said at the beginning of the season. “We’ve set the standard of going out there and trying to win, and that’s what we’re going to do in each and every game.”

While Maryland’s offense isn’t averaging over nine runs per game like last year’s squad, the Terps’ offense this season is still averaging over seven runs per game. Maryland has only failed to produce fewer than five runs just once this season.

Spearheading the offensive attack is Iowa transfer Sam Hojnar, who leads the team with 11 RBIs. Hojnar has been on a tear lately, recording driving in 10 runs over his past four games. 

Maryland’s offense has differed from last year’s team in two crucial ways — its ability to score without hitting home runs and production from everyone in the lineup.

Last year’s team led the Big Ten in home runs with 131, putting them at an average of over two home runs per game. This year’s Terps have hit just six through seven games. 

“We’re not going to have the 50 home runs that [Shaw and Lorusso] hit last year,” Kevin Keister said before the season. “We’re just going to play in different ways and play a little bit smaller ball.”

Small ball has been the theme for the Terps, as only one player has more than one home run so far this season. But Maryland has still found ways to put up big numbers, doing so with contributions from a variety of hitters — seven Terps have at least four RBIs so far. The team also has a collective batting average of .291 this season, meaning the unit consistently puts the ball in play. 

Yet Swope isn’t satisfied with his offense.

“I think we’ve done a good job of building a lot of innings up but haven’t quite punched through as much as we’d like to with the bases loaded and runners in scoring position,” Swope said on Wednesday. [We’ve] started off good and finished well, but [we’ve] had too many lulls in the middle innings.”

Maryland’s latest performance against Washington is a prime example of what Swope is talking about, as the team had a strong second and eighth innings but saw a streak of 14 consecutive batters retired in the middle innings.

The Terps’ pitching staff was also a big concern coming into the season, as last year, the team ranked 10 out of 13 Big Ten teams. Four pitchers from last year’s team fell victim to the draft, and Kyle McCoy underwent Tommy John surgery in June last year.

The team’s pitching started the season well but faltered in the Kleberg Bank College Classic, giving up four or more runs in all three games.

Maryland’s starting pitchers have produced solid efforts, throwing four or more innings in six of the first seven games. The Terps currently have an ERA of over four, but that mark is still better than last year’s team, which featured an ERA of nearly six.

Kenny Lippman has been the most notable arm, as he’s allowed only two earned runs through nine combined innings in his first two starts.

Maryland’s pitching will look to rebound this week when it faces Georgetown (3-4) at home on Tuesday at 2 p.m. and VCU (4-3) on the road on Wednesday at 3 p.m.