When the Maryland baseball team won five of six games at the end of April, associate head coach Jim Belanger credited the Terps’ improved pitching and defense to that impressive stretch.
The Terps defense struggled at the beginning of the season, but it improved as Maryland clinched a spot in the eight-team conference tournament. But Friday in the Terps’ contest against Michigan State in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament, those defensive struggles resurfaced.
The No. 6-seed Terps committed four errors as they fell to the No. 7-seed Spartans, 4-3, at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska.
Maryland, now in the loser’s bracket of the tournament, will play No. 3-seed Indiana this evening in an elimination game. The Terps beat the Hoosiers, 5-3, in the first round Wednesday.
“It’s a tough day for us,” coach John Szefc said. “Uncharacteristically making four errors really kind of hurts us. It gave them some opportunities that you would think they wouldn’t have if we weren’t making a lot of errors. The postseason is about playing good defense and getting timely hitting, and they got a little bit more than we did.”
Right-hander Taylor Bloom, who entered Friday with the best ERA of the Terps’ weekend rotation (2.46), allowed four runs, two of which were earned. The sophomore didn’t receive much support, though, as Maryland’s offense went 2-for-12 with runners on base. Two of the Terps’ runs came on solo home runs.
The Terps (29-26) got on the board first, though, when catcher Justin Morris, who was in the lineup for the first time since May 14, singled in designated hitter Nick Cieri in the second inning.
In the fourth, second baseman Nick Dunn failed to control Spartans first baseman Jordan Zimmerman’s hit, allowing him to reach base. Three batters later, right fielder Dan Chmielewski singled in second baseman Dan Durkin to tie the contest.
Maryland regained the lead in the fifth when right fielder Anthony Papio, the Terps’ lone senior on offense, hit his fourth home run of the season. But the Spartans (36-18) tied the game again in the sixth when Zimmerman responded with his own solo home run.
“I definitely allowed a lot of groundballs at the beginning of the game,” Bloom said. “Towards the end of the game, I started getting up in the zone with fastballs, and they got better swings on it.”
Then Michigan State took control in the eighth. Zimmerman knocked in his second run of the contest before shortstop Kevin Smith committed a fielding error on Durkin’s hit, allowing him to reach base. Right-hander Mike Rescigno, the Terps’ usual closer, then replaced Bloom. On the first batter the junior faced, catcher Matt Byers reached on a fielder’s choice and Zimmerman advanced home.
Cieri, who went 2-for-2 from the plate, hit his first home run since Feb. 28 in the eighth to cut Maryland’s deficit to 4-3, but the Terps couldn’t string hits together after the defense put them in a hole.
“Obviously, you’ve got to be able to come out and score more runs than what we did,” Szefc said.
Last weekend, Maryland won its series at Michigan State, 2-1. The lone game the Terps lost in that series came when Maryland also committed four errors.
Maryland will need to rebound quickly to stay in the running for a Big Ten Tournament title and improve its chances of qualifying for the NCAA Tournament.
“We’ve had doubleheaders where we’ve lost the first game and have had to come back and flush that quickly and win a big second game,” Papio said. “It’s nothing new for us. The game’s done.”
