The baseball team entered the NESCAC portion of its schedule on Friday with a record of 19-2 — a vast improvement over the 2-9 ledger it brought into conference play last season. But after averaging a terrific 9.1 runs per game over their first 11 contests, the Jumbos found runs a lot harder to come by during their weekend series against Bates (10-5 overall, 1-2 NESCAC) at Lewiston, Maine.
Nonetheless, thanks to stellar pitching and some late-inning heroics at the plate, the Jumbos took two games of the three-game set, improving to 11-3 on the season and 2-1 in NESCAC play. Tufts won the series-opener on Friday by a final score of 5-2, but was then shut out in the seven-inning middle game of the series 3-0. And the Jumbos needed a dramatic comeback to capture the rubber match.
Bates' bats were hot to begin the series finale, as the Bobcats collected four singles off Tufts' starting pitcher, junior Derek Miller, in the first inning. The Bobcats took a 2-0 lead on a pair of RBI singles by junior first baseman Noah Lynd and junior catcher Gordy Webb.
The Jumbos countered with a run of their own in the second on a two-out, RBI single by junior infielder Frank Petroskey, who ranks third on the team with a .418 batting average in his first year playing for Tufts after transferring from Div. I University of Vermont. But the Bobcats restocked their lead in the bottom of the third, as Webb picked up his second RBI of the game.
All was quiet in the middle innings, until the Bobcats came to bat in the bottom of the seventh. Two hits and an error by Miller chased the Jumbos' starter from the game, and senior reliever Tom Hill allowed two of the inherited runners to score on a single by junior outfielder Rich Velotta. Miller's final line on the day was 6.1 innings, 11 hits, five runs (three earned), three walks and five strikeouts.
Now down 5-1, the Jumbos were determined not to let the series slip away. They knocked Bates' starter from the game with two singles and a walk to begin the eighth frame. Freshman outfielder Eric Weikert then worked a walk to narrow the gap to 5-2, bringing David Orlowitz to the plate with the bases loaded and one out. The junior could not have picked a better spot for his first home run of the season, launching a grand slam over the centerfield fence to give Tufts a 6-5 lead.
"I wasn't really thinking about much going into the box, but I'd been struggling that day and wanted to get a good pitch to hit," Orlowitz said. "Obviously the one I got, I hit it pretty hard, and that made the difference."
That eighth inning outburst broke a string of 14 innings during which the Jumbos scored only one run. They made it count, as junior Ed Bernstein and sophomore Chris DeGoti made the one-run edge hold up, with the latter picking up his third save of the season. Hill also picked up the win, improving to 2-0 on the year.
Earlier that afternoon in the series' second game, the Jumbos had been tamed by sophomore righty Karl Alexander, who upped his record to 3-0 on the season with a seven-inning shutout effort. Both teams had seven hits in the contest, but Bates had the big ones — a two-run homer in the second-inning by Lynd, and an RBI hit by Webb in the fourth. The loss was charged to junior Pat O'Donnell, who allowed six hits and all three runs in just three innings of work, falling to 2-1.
On Friday, Tufts enjoyed a stellar pitching performance from sophomore Dave Ryan, who was making his first NESCAC start of his young career. The righty matched goose eggs with Bates' junior Paul Chiampa for six innings, finally getting some help from the Jumbos' offense in the seventh to improve to 2-0. In all, Ryan hurled seven shutout frames, giving up three hits and three walks, while fanning five.
"I basically just treated this as any other game and felt pretty good throughout," Ryan said. "It was definitely a good start for me, but there are a lot of things I need to keep working on to get better later on in the season."
Meanwhile, the offense ensured that Ryan's effort would not go unrewarded, as Petroskey drove in a pair with a double, and later scored on a triple by junior outfielder Ian Goldberg. Tufts added another run in the eighth on an RBI double by Orlowitz, and scored its fifth of the game in the ninth on a bases-loaded walk drawn by sophomore infielder Sam Sager.
Although sophomore Jake Crawford got into some trouble and surrendered two runs in the bottom of the ninth, DeGoti was there to close out the opener by getting the Bobcats' No. 3 hitter, junior Chris Burke — representing the winning run — to foul out with the bases loaded.
Tufts will next be in action when it hosts Brandeis on Tuesday before taking on NESCAC foe Colby this weekend at Huskins Field. The Jumbos will look to continue the momentum garnered from a series win in their first three-game conference slate.
"This weekend was a good start to the season for us," Ryan said. "We pitched well, played good defense — I think those are things we can build off and keep doing better in the future."
