Preview: Maryland baseball’s inconsistency continued ahead of Bryant series

Maryland baseball continued its inconsistencies this season in its midweek games against Georgetown and VCU after being on both sides of blowouts. The Terps played two games in about 30 hours, featuring two wildly different performances.

Maryland played just its second home game of the season on Tuesday against Georgetown and dominated in all facets of the game. The Terps were disciplined at the plate, walking ten times throughout the game en route to a 14-run performance on just nine hits. They hit a single-game season high three home runs.

Senior Kevin Keister led the way for Maryland, recording four RBIs and blasting his first home run of the season into left-center field.

“[It’s] the best feeling in baseball,” Keister said about his home run. “Chris [Hacopian] was already on, and I was just kind of like ‘He has to throw me a pitch to hit here.’ So I was sitting, dead red fastball, and he threw it out over the play, and I just put a good swing on.”

The Terps blew the game open early, scoring seven runs in the first inning. But unlike some of their prior games, they didn’t let off the gas pedal. Maryland failed to score at least one run in just three innings, something coach Matt Swope had said he wanted to see more of from the team. 

“I felt like we were just threatening the whole game,” Swope said after the game. “We talked about being relentless for 27 outs, and I think we did that for 24 outs.”

Swope only needed to use two pitchers on the mound, and despite five earned runs allowed, got another respectable starting performance from Ryan Van Buren. He delivered career highs in strikeouts with seven and innings pitched with six in his second outing this season as the Terps’ midweek starter. 

Freshman Duke McCarron pitched the last three innings for Maryland and recorded his first collegiate save, giving the Terps plenty of momentum going to VCU less than 24 hours later.

But Maryland was a completely different team on Wednesday. The Terps took a 6-3 lead into the seventh inning when the game got out of hand, committing four errors and surrendered 11 runs before recording an out. By the time the inning ended, the Rams had scored 12 runs as a pair of Maryland arms failed to record an out in the frame.

The Terps’ offense also seemed to revert back to inconsistency in spite of their performance on Monday. The lineup scored four runs in the second inning, but they scored just three runs over the rest of the game.

“There was a little bit of miscommunication between Chris and Kevin that kind of led to the big inning,” Swope said. “If you get an out there now, there’s just a man on second with one out [and] even if they hit a two-run homer, you’re still up one.” 

Maryland will look to put Wednesday’s game behind it as it heads back home for a weekend series against Bryant.

The Terps have been dominant in their two home games this season, scoring exactly 14 runs in each game. Home games have also allowed Maryland to keep its bullpen fresh, as the team has used just three bullpen pitchers combined in their two home games.

The series against the Bulldogs will be the Terps’ first home series of the season. They’ll look to continue their home dominance when the first pitch starts at 4 p.m. on Friday.