Tim Kiene

With the Terrapins baseball team nursing a one-run lead in the sixth inning Friday night, first baseman Tim Kiene stepped to the plate with two men on base and the opportunity to put the game out of reach.

The 6-foot-4 Kiene worked three straight balls and fouled off the next pitch. On the fifth offering from N.C. State’s Ethan Ogburn, he launched a shot over the wall in right field and deep onto the football practice field. The Terps took a 4-0 lead, which proved more than enough in victory.

After suffering a shoulder injury March 4, Kiene’s bat had been quiet. With three home runs in his past five contests after a 24-game homerless drought, however, it appears Kiene’s power stroke is returning as the Terps (21-13) take on West Virginia (14-19) tonight at Bob “Turtle” Smith Stadium.

“The league knows how to pitch me, per se, but I’m just getting some mistake pitches and putting some swings on the ball,” Kiene said, “and they’ve been flying.”

Kiene knows he still has work to do as the season moves on. Since his injury, his average has dropped from .382 to .240, and his on-base percentage sits at .307. Kiene’s prodigous power and ability is there, as he hit .371 over his last 30 games of 2011 and 10 home runs in the New England Collegiate Baseball Leagues. One of Kiene’s greatest traits over that period was consistency, and that’s what he’s looking to reacquire.

“I’m glad that he’s been able to change the game with one swing – that’s why we recruited him,” said coach Erik Bakich. “But I also am more focused on the amount of quality at-bats more than anything else.”

MOVING ON UP

While Bakich has had to shuffle the Terps’ starting rotation with the emergence of left-hander Jimmy Reed and the return to form of right-hander Brett Harman, he’s confident right-hander David Carroll will thrive in the Sunday starter role.

Despite being up and down at times during the year in his role as a Saturday starter, Carroll has turned in quality outings for the Terps in three of his past four starts. In his two most recent outings against Boston College and N.C. State, Carroll has thrown 15 innings, allowed four runs (two earned) on 15 hits and, perhaps most importantly, issued no walks.

“I think everybody has a lot of confidence when he pitches, period,” Bakich said. “A day like today and many times throughout the season, when he’s throwing strikes, he lets our defense play.”

As he left his March 24 start at Miami after allowing three runs in only 1.2 innings of work due to stiffness in his neck and shoulder, Carroll’s near-future seemed in doubt. He wasn’t even listed as a probable starter for the Terps’ series at Boston College. But when the team needed a big win the final game of the series in Chestnut Hill, Mass., Carroll came through.

“I think I’ve been feeling pretty good for two weeks now and that kind of correlated into the game,” he said. “Boston College was the same thing. I was locating my fastball really well and all my other pitches kind of feed off that. That’s kind of been the big key for me.”

HALFWAY HOME

After Virginia polished off a three-game sweep of Wake Forest on Monday night, three teams besides the Terps were left tied for eighth place at the halfway mark of the conference schedule with identical 5-10 ACC records. The top eight teams qualify for the postseason tournament, something the Terps haven’t done since the league’s 2005 expansion.

Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Duke are fighting the Terps for the final spot in the ACC Tournament, and two of the team’s next three series are against the Blue Devils and Hokies.

As has been the theme all season, Bakich is keeping his team’s focus on the immediate future. He said he’s not thinking about what’s happening around the rest of the league.

“To be honest, I’m really just worried about today, and that’s going to be the standard answer,” Bakich said yesterday. “Focusing on today and just taking the approach that we need to get better today – not thinking two weeks out, one week out. Thinking about getting better in practice today, and then playing our best against West Virginia tomorrow.”

dgallen@umdbk.com