The toughest out to get in baseball is the last one. Bradley’s baseball team knows this all too well after last weekend, where all three games were decided by four runs combined.
The Braves lost two of those three games to the Evansville Aces, one of which was from a walk-off home run last Friday night. The inability to get that last out set the tone for the entire weekend.
“[We were] disappointed,” head coach Elvis Dominguez said. “There were three great college baseball games, and we had two bad pitching innings in game one and three, and it cost us both ball games.”
Dominguez was referring to the three-run third inning in Friday’s 7-6 loss and the two-run bottom of the eighth in Sunday’s 2-0 loss.
To make matters worse, the Bradley pitchers who gave up these runs had been stalwarts for the team all year. Junior Matt Dennis yielded the big inning in game one while freshman Ben Olsen and junior Eric Scheuermann allowed the winning runs in game three.
“Guys that have been unbelievable for us so far were the one’s that, for one inning, just lost it,” Dominguez said. “Dennis lost it in the first game, which he normally doesn’t do. He walked a couple guys then gave up a hit that made it a 3-3 ballgame. In the last game, we had three walks, a hit batsman and lost 2-0.”
Dominguez said the players took the losses hard knowing that “they could’ve won all three games.” The team’s starting pitching certainly put it in position to win each game. Dennis, whose outing was the least productive of the group, threw relatively well. The righty went 5.1 innings and gave up four runs on five hits and four walks.
The best performances of the weekend came from senior left-handed pitchers Cameron Roegner and Brent Stong. Roegner backed up his complete-game performance two weeks ago with another stellar outing against the Aces by working into the ninth inning again, giving up three runs on six hits, no walks and three strikeouts in the 4-3 win.
Stong was arguably the best pitcher of the weekend, blanking the Aces through seven innings while giving up six hits, three walks and six strikeouts. The outing boosts the crafty lefty’s scoreless-innings streak to 16.1 innings.
“They’ve been able to command more than one pitch,” Dominguez said. “The last two outings [for Cameron], he had all three pitches going, and he was really pitching. Same thing with Brent, he had a changeup going, his curveball and a fastball, which kept them guessing all day long. If they keep doing that, it gives us an opportunity to win.”
Roegner’s dominance gives rise to the debate regarding who should be the game one starter in the remaining series of the year. Dennis has been the Friday starter all year and has performed adequately, posting a record of 5-2 with a 4.56 ERA and 1.31 WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched). Roegner sits at 4-3 with a 3.40 ERA and 1.01 WHIP.
Dominguez said he would consider switching the pitchers’ spots if Roegner were to have another quality start.
“You’re only as good as your last outing,” Dominguez said. “So if he does it this weekend, then that’s an option I’m going to have to look at about moving him to Friday and then Matt to Saturday.”
The Braves were scheduled to take on the Iowa Hawkeyes on Wednesday, but the game was postponed due to rain.
Bradley, who is now 2-3 in the conference and sits in fifth place, travels on the road again this weekend to Wichita, Kansas, to take on the Shockers, who are 3-3 in conference play. Each conference game for the Braves thus far has been close, and Dominguez expects more of the same in a “tough atmosphere.”
“We have to play complete baseball,” Dominguez said. “It’s going to boil down to Bradley not beating Bradley, and if we do that, then I think we’ll be in every ballgame this weekend.”
