With its pitching staff running thin after 16 innings of work, the winning run at second base, and the score tied at 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth, the baseball team could not have been happier to see senior outfielder Chase Rose step to the plate with a chance to put the finishing touch on a sweep of the Bates Bobcats.
The team's batting average and RBI leader worked the count into his favor before drilling a fastball into left field, bringing home senior second baseman Frank Petroskey for a walk-off 3-2 Jumbos victory.
"I'm primarily a fastball hitter, so I was able to lay off the curveballs to start the at-bat, get to a 2-1 count and then hit the pitch I wanted," Rose said of his game-winning at-bat. "It was great to get the sweep because I thought that while we pitched really well, we could've done better on offense."
The Jumbos' hopes of a 3-0 start to their NESCAC slate seemed in peril early on in the second game of Sunday's doubleheader, as senior starter Derek Miller coughed up two runs in a laborious first inning. But the southpaw settled down after that and allowed just two more hits while holding Bates scoreless for the remainder of his seven innings of work.
The bullpen picked up where Miller left off, as freshman Christian Sbily and junior Jake Crawford each posted a zero on the scoreboard, with the latter earning his first win of the season.
Junior catcher Matt Collins crushed his second homer of the season in the second inning of the contest, while senior centerfielder David Orlowitz and junior co-captain third baseman Sam Sager delivered back-to-back doubles to plate the tying run in the seventh.
Earlier on Sunday, in the first game of the twinbill, junior starter Dave Ryan endured his worst outing of the season, as the Bobcats plated six runs in just over four innings against the righty. Senior catcher Gordy Webb accounted for two of those Bates runs in the second on a long homer to left field, putting the Jumbos behind from the get-go.
Although Ryan's pitching line included four walks and four hits, Coach John Casey blamed his struggles on the fierce gusts that pounded Huskins Field throughout the weekend.
"Ryan's fastball has a lot of tail, and the wind consistently brought it toward the middle of the plate," Casey said. "That helped them square up the ball and made the ball fly when they hit it."
Fortunately for Ryan, though, the Tufts bats had no trouble getting Ryan off the hook, as they bashed Bates' starter, sophomore Kevin McGregor, for five runs in 3 2/3 innings. Four of those runs came in the third inning — during which the Jumbos batted around — before Orlowitz added a solo shot in the fourth.
A sixth inning rally, which began when Orlowitz was hit by a pitch with one out, continued with a Sager double and peaked when Sager sprinted home with the go-ahead run on a passed ball, gave the Jumbos a 7-6 lead they would not surrender. Senior closer Eddie Bernstein — who picked up his first win of the season — worked the final 2 2/3 innings of the game and allowed just one Bobcats batter to reach base while fanning three.
"Our bullpen did a great job," Casey said. "Bernstein worked overtime for us in the first game, and Crawford kind of filled the role Bernstein had last year in the second game.
"They're a good offensive team," Casey added of the Bobcats, who left the series with a .279 team batting average and .376 on-base percentage. "They make you work hard to get outs, and their middle of the order can really hurt you when you make mistakes."
The Jumbos would not have had their bullpen rested for Sunday's nail-biters without a dominant performance by junior lefty Kevin Gilchrist in the series opener on Saturday.
Gilchrist mowed down the Bobcats lineup, dominantly working his way through inning after inning. The southpaw allowed 10 hits, but fanned six batters while not issuing a single walk. He kept hitters guessing and controlled the tempo from beginning to end in Tufts' first complete game shutout since Gilchrist himself delivered a one-hit gem against Bowdoin last April.
"I pitched to contact and kept the ball low to get groundballs," said Gilchrist, who recorded nine of his 27 outs that way. "All three of my pitches were working, so I was able to mix things up and keep the hitters off-balance."
Meanwhile, Bates junior starter Karl Alexander stymied Tufts' lineup for the first three innings before the Jumbos burst through with a four-run effort in the fourth. Rose and Collins singled, and sophomore outfielder Eric Weikert was hit by a pitch, setting up the bottom of the order with the bases loaded and nobody out.
Senior left fielder Ian Goldberg opened the floodgates with a sacrifice fly before sophomore first baseman Tom Howard singled home another run. The Jumbos added two more when co-captains senior shortstop David LeResche and Sager received free passes with the bases loaded, the former on a walk and the latter on a hit-by-pitch.
Tufts manufactured an insurance run in the fifth, as Collins led off with a double, Weikert bunted him over to third and Goldberg sent him home on his second sacrifice fly in as many innings. The 5-0 tally held up as the final score of the game.
The Jumbos (9-4-1 overall, 3-0 NESCAC) appear to have righted their ship after an up-and-down spring break trip and are now riding a six-game winning streak.
Tufts will head to Waltham, Mass., today for a doubleheader against Brandeis and Daniel Webster beginning at 3 p.m. Its NESCAC campaign resumes on Friday with a three-game series against Trinity, and the team's next home match comes on April 13 against Bentley.
"We played well this weekend, but there's definitely a lot of room for us to get better," Rose said. "We need to have better at-bats and get better pitches to hit to improve offensively. We're definitely going to need to do that to come away with three more wins against Trinity next weekend."
