The Terrapins baseball team’s two losses to Wake Forest over the weekend came with multiple disappointments.

The Terps lost a chance to make up ground in the conference against a lower-tier ACC team. They failed to find the consistency they once had during a nine-game winning streak weeks ago. But most of all, the defeats highlighted questions surrounding the entire pitching staff.

On Saturday, the Terps were buoyed by seven shutout innings from right-hander Brady Kirkpatrick and carried a 2-0 lead into the top of the eighth. But the bullpen squandered that advantage, surrendering eight runs in the inning. Even with a furious five-run rally, the Terps couldn’t redeem themselves and ultimately fell, 8-7.

The next day, it was the starting pitching that was suspect. Right-hander Jake Stinnett — a reliever for much of his career — couldn’t get through two full innings and allowed six Wake Forest runs in the eventual 7-4 defeat.

Coach John Szefc said his rotation’s reliability is limited to just Kirkpatrick and Jimmy Reed, a senior who earned the win in the first game of the series on Friday. That makes Stinnett’s latest stumble difficult for a young staff to overcome.

“This is his first year of really being a full-time pitcher,” said the first-year coach, whose team will host George Mason this evening. “His stuff is very good, but he’s got to get better at harnessing it a little bit and working in the zone. It’s tough because you have a guy with a great arm and good stuff like that.”

But the pitcher who replaced Stinnett — right-hander Brandon Casas — became the bright spot on an otherwise dismal day for the Terps (14-9, 3-6 ACC). Despite allowing four consecutive runs — three of them inherited — the freshman settled in and tossed five consecutive scoreless innings.

“We’re starting to figure our bullpen out a little more as far as guys we can depend on,” Szefc said. “He’s a young guy, and he’s done a pretty good job this year. As we get better at not allowing inherited runners to score, that’s when we’ll start to make strides out of our bullpen.”

Whether it’s in the bullpen or the rotation, however, one thing is certain: The Terps must do a better job of preventing runs. In the three-game series against Wake Forest, the pitching staff walked 14 Demon Deacons and hit five players. And through 203.2 innings pitched this season, the Terps have walked 112 opponents — an average of nearly five walks a game.

“You can’t walk guys, and that’s our biggest Achilles’ heel right now,” Szefc said. “We have to throw more strikes. Unless you do the little things offensively, throw strikes and give opposing teams three outs an inning as opposed to four and cut your freebies down, you’re going to lose, and that’s what we’ve done.”

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