Terrapin baseball coach Terry Rupp will have to wait another year to finally beat Florida State.
The Seminoles (16-8, 6-4 ACC) dominated the Terps on the mound and in the batter’s box all weekend, culminating in a 21-5 win yesterday. The convincing three-game sweep left the Terps (11-15, 3-9 ACC) with much work to do if they hope to reach the ACC Tournament, and Rupp still searching for his first win against the Seminoles after 27 tries.
“We didn’t play the best baseball we could’ve,” catcher Will Greenberg said. “I think we played pretty hard, but there were some chances that we didn’t capitalize on, and we needed to throw a few more strikes and get a few more hits here and there.”
Through the weekend, the Seminoles outscored the Terps 37-9.
The Terp pitchers struggled all weekend, allowing the Florida State hitters to settle into a groove and finish with 44 hits, including eight home runs.
In addition, the Seminoles racked up 24 walks – 10 in yesterday’s game alone – highlighting a weekend filled with control issues for the Terp pitchers.
“We didn’t have a starter get us through the second inning in any of the three games, and you can’t win doing that,” Rupp said. “We got ourselves in some bad counts and you can’t expect to get guys out consistently when that happens.”
Most disconcerting for the team is that it looked as if the weekend rotation had been established, and starters Matt Fullerton, Scott Swinson and Eric Potter were finding their grooves.
Swinson’s start was especially troubling because the team has relied on the junior to give its bullpen a rest and pitch deep into the ballgame. But the Seminoles jumped on the righthander, tagging him for eight hits and six earned runs in just 1.2 innings pitched.
“We need our horses up front, Scott [Swinson] is a key guy for us. He is a guy who’s gotta go out there and give us six or seven innings. He has got the ability to do that. He has done it in the past,” pitching coach Jim Farr said. “We need to stop pitching away from their bats. The bats are our friends; we want them hitting the ball. If your stuff is quality enough and you have got some movement to your fastball, make them hit it. And we just didn’t do that.”
In contrast, the young Seminoles pitching staff never had any problems as they cruised through the Terps lineup, allowing just nine runs and 19 hits all weekend. With the game already out of reach in the ninth inning yesterday, the Terps scored three runs, perhaps the lone offensive highlight of the weekend.
Rupp wanted his offense to be aggressive, but the Terp hitters seemed to be pressing in their at-bats.
Instead of being patient and making the Florida State pitchers work, Terp hitters were swinging early and often, and their at-bats repeatedly ended in popouts or groundouts. Their aggresiveness was especially noticeable on Saturday when Seminole freshman Brian Busch needed just 95 pitches to hold the Terps to two runs over eight innings.
“Recently we have been a little passive at the plate so we were out there trying to swing at the first pitch,” Greenberg said. “Throughout the weekend they had been throwing a lot of first pitch fastballs and if they are going to throw those it might be the best pitch you see all at-bat. We just missed out on a couple chances that we needed to capitalize on.”
This weekend, the Terps failed to capitalize on much of anything.
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