Freshman centerfielder Andy Shadid had the weekend of his life in Wichita, Kansas. The Peoria native hit three home runs in three games and even landed a spot on ESPN’s Top-10 plays.
Shadid’s heroics, however, weren’t enough to boost the Bradley baseball team over Wichita State.
Bradley lost two of three games over the weekend, despite the team outscoring the Shockers. In the end, the team’s inability to hold a lead sentenced them to their fate.
“Our bullpen really didn’t do the job again, just like they didn’t the week before at Evansville,” head coach Elvis Dominguez said. “It’s baseball. You just hope it doesn’t happen to you, but it’s been happening to us. Realistically, we should be 6-2 in this league right now because of one-run losses.”
The Braves lost Friday’s and Sunday’s games despite holding leads of three or more in each game.
“It’s tough just because we thought we could beat them,” Shadid said. “It stinks because we beat ourselves. The good thing is we know we can compete with all those guys we lost to.”
As Dominguez noted, this is the second week in a row the bullpen has failed to maintain substantial leads. Dominguez attributes some of the struggle to the turnover of personnel in the bullpen from last season to this season.
“That bullpen that was so good for us a year ago are now in starting roles,” Dominguez said. “[Senior] Cameron Roegner was a relief guy, [senior] Matt Dennis was our closer. Now those guys are on the front end. But, I expect those guys that have been with us to be able to take over those roles and solidify it for us, and for the last two weeks, that hasn’t happened.”
Dominguez won’t make any drastic changes to his bullpen, saying the solution is to “go right back at it” with the same pitchers. The skipper also will not make any changes to his rotation, and will continue to throw Dennis on Friday and Roegner on Saturday.
The Braves’ record isn’t indicative of the way the team is playing. The starting pitchers have regularly worked effectively into the sixth and seventh innings, and the offense is starting to show more signs of life.
“I was really happy with the way we played,” Dominguez said. “We were able to get two-out hits. We scored three runs on Friday and two on Saturday with two outs, so guys were just getting the next guy up. They were all focused and did an outstanding job, and we got production from the whole lineup.”
The most productive Brave this year has been the aforementioned Shadid. The freshman has been mashing the ball, smacking four home runs in his last four games after Wednesday’s 9-0 win over Robert Morris.
“I’m just starting to see the ball really well this second half of the season, and I’m just trying to keep it going,” Shadid, who has a .321 batting average and .417 on-base percentage, said.
In addition to Shadid, freshman Luke Mangieri, who has been hitting leadoff for the Braves as of late, has also drawn high praise from Dominguez.
“They have both played well beyond their year,” Dominguez said. “What they’ve been able to do, especially Andy, both defensively and offensively he has really taken his game to another level. Both of those guys are tremendous workers and they’re never satisfied.”
A large challenge looms ahead this weekend for Bradley as they host No. 17 Dallas Baptist for a three-game set. Dominguez and Shadid both said the key to winning is to not beat themselves, whether it’s giving up walks or committing defensive errors.
Bradley kicks off the series against DBU tonight at 6 p.m. at Dozer Park.
