On the heels of an exhausting series loss to Boston College, the Terrapin baseball team could use a break.
Instead, they’ll face a red-hot George Mason team off to their best start in school history.
The Patriots have not played a particularly difficult schedule early, but they are 16-4 on the season, and have won 12 of their last 13 games, including a series victory at Old Dominion, a team the Terps lost to on the road already this season. The Patriots will be a far cry from the majority of the Terps’ nonconference opponents.
The Patriots will try to take advantage of the Terps, as they are coming off a mentally and physically draining weekend series. The Terps used 11 pitchers in the three games against Boston College and were involved in a bench-clearing incident with the Eagles in the series finale.
“Tuesday games are the hardest games on our schedule coming off the weekend series because our conference is so tough,” Rupp said. “But we just got to count on the senior leadership that has been through these things before to prepare us and help us get ready.”
Rupp will need one of those seniors to step up early, as the Terps will turn to Brett Jones to try and to shut down a veteran-laden Patriot offense hitting .298 as a team.
Jones has pitched exclusively out of the bullpen this year and had been scuffling before the Boston College series, allowing 11 earned runs and 12 walks in just 13 innings pitched. But Jones rebounded in Friday’s 6-2 loss to the Eagles.
After Boston College put up four runs in the first inning, Jones had his best performance of the year in relief, allowing just two runs during 5.1 innings, and the coaching staff was impressed enough to start him.
“We feel like he just needs to get some work and time on the mound, and he threw extremely well against Boston College on Friday,” Rupp said. “He will probably have a short start so we can use him over the weekend. But we thought he would get us going early so we could get off to a great start.”
The Terps offense will need to find a way to score runs, something they struggled with during the weekend, if they hope to halt the streaking Patriots.
The team managed just seven runs despite accumulating 29 hits. The real problem has been getting the crucial hits with runners in scoring position, but it’s hard to practice for such occasions.
“I thought we swung the bats, but we didn’t get the key hits in the situations we needed them; it’s just timely hitting,” Rupp said. “But I think once we get someone to crack one really good, we will take off – it’s gonna be contagious.”
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