Quick to rise, yet even quicker to fall. What a difference a week’s worth of baseball makes. What a difference indeed.
This time last week, the UMass Boston baseball team was receiving high praise from not only myself, but from their head coach Brendan Eygabroat regarding their newfound winning ways and their best record to start a season since the inception of Internet-archived records.
At that time, UMass Boston held a very respectable 9-5 record and was in the midst of winning four out their last five games, pitching well and hitting at precise moments. Like I said, what a difference one week makes.
Since winning 9-2 on the road at Salem State College on April 3, the Beacons have seen their lighthouse of hopes diminish in a relative nanosecond. They now sit near the basement of the Little East holding a 1-3 inter-conference record, with only UMass Dartmouth and Western Connecticut State University looking up at them.
After a postponed game on April 6, the Beacons had their sights set for the next day on an inter-conference double-dip with Rhode Island College. This would stand to be one of the bigger tests that UMass Boston has encountered so far this season. Continuing with their non-home game riddled schedule, the Beacons traveled to Anchorman Field located in Providence to face one of the better teams the Little East had to offer.
Reigning LEC Pitcher of the Year Nick Conway got bumped around early and often in the Beacon’s first game of the day. Nick went 6 2/3 innings but he allowed nine hits, five earned runs, three walks and hit a batter while striking out a season low two RIC opponents. He was not helped by his defense, in particular senior shortstop and team captain Bryan Curran who committed two errors in the fourth inning which led to two unearned runs and pushed RIC’s lead to 3-0.
The Beacons did not drop their heads, however, and came back to tie the game in the next two innings with some help from the Anchorman defense by way of two unearned runs in the fifth and a redemption RBI single by Curran in the sixth. But Conway could not hold down the opposition and the Anchormen pulled away with three more runs and ended up winning 6-4.
The second game of the afternoon sent senior Jaime Soto to the bump to face the Anchormen. Soto ended up getting hit very hard in his 6 2/3 innings of work. He allowed 15 of 19 hits, a season high, collected by RIC to go along with seven earned runs. For the second straight game, the Beacons committed three errors, which led to two unearned runs for the home team.
The Beacons also left 13 runners on base, six of which were stranded by junior transfer designated hitter and outfielder Dan Ciocca. The Beacons’ chances of splitting the double-header were greatly diminished by their lack of timely hitting and sloppy play in the field. RIC spread their offense around like butter on warm toast as eight Anchormen collected two or more hits, six of which collected one or more RBI’s in the 9-4 win and sweep of the Beacons on April 7.
The Beacons had a chance to get back to their winning ways on April 9, but they ran into Suffolk University at Adams Field in Quincy, Mass. Suffolk sophomore starter Tim Doyle was spectacular from the start in his complete game five-hit shutout of the hapless Beacons. He struck out five and allowed no walks in his nine innings of dominance. The game was over after one inning as Suffolk scored six times off sophomore UMass Boston starter Anthony Lauretto and handed the game off to Doyle, who was in complete control the entire game.
Everything the Beacons had accomplished en route to a 9-5 record has seemingly been washed away by this three-game losing streak. They are leaving men on base, 27 in the last three games, making too many errors, eight in the last three games, and not pitching the way they had been prior, 6.03 ERA in the last three games.
Bright spots for the Beacons right now are freshman pitcher Mike Andriano and senior captain and shortstop Curran. Andriano leads the LEC in ERA with a dental floss thin 1.67 over 27 innings while Curran is 12th in the league with a.387 batting average. The Beacons’ pitching is second in the league with a 4.06 ERA, but much like last year, their offense is sitting near the basement of the league in batting average.