Playing a sub-.500 team in Towson for a two-game, midweek series this week and coming off a convincing three-game sweep of rival Virginia Tech over the weekend, two easy victories seemed to be in order for the Virginia baseball team. Both games, however, came down to a single run, as Virginia lost its second home game of the season 7-6 last night after narrowly defeating the Tigers 9-8 the night before.
The Towson offense caused fits for the Virginia pitching staff on both occasions, as Virginia coach Brian O'Connor used five pitchers in each of the two games. Both starting pitchers were knocked out of the game early. Tuesday starter, senior Robert Poutier, was taken out of the second inning and charged with five runs on six hits, while senior Jake Rule pitched two scoreless innings yesterday before being pulled in the third while allowing four runs. The staff's best effort came from sophomore Neal Davis, who threw 5.1 scoreless innings in relief of Poutier Tuesday, keeping the Tigers at bay as Virginia roared back for the one-run win.
In the bottom of the ninth during game two, Virginia had a chance to come up with yet another come-from-behind win. With junior Greg Miclat on first and two outs, freshman Dan Grovatt, the team's leading hitter with a .426 batting average, stepped into the box. After working the count to 2-1, Miclat took off on a pitch that bounced in front of junior catcher Jason Stifler, putting Miclat in scoring position for the hot-hitting Grovatt. After continuing to battle to a 3-2 count, Grovatt was twice spared from ending the game with a foul ball out down the third-base line; the third baseman came within inches of making a diving grab on the first, while the second barely cleared the wall to the Virginia bullpen.
"The umpire seemed to have a pretty high zone," Grovatt said. "The whole at-bat I was trying to fight off pitches. You have to make adjustments when the umpire's got a big zone."
On the next pitch, however, Grovatt popped up to shortstop and, throwing his bat to the ground in disgust, ended Virginia's chances of another late-game comeback.
"That kid has come through in the clutch so many times in these first 30 ballgames," O'Connor said of Grovatt. "He had a great at-bat."
In both games, Miclat was called upon to squeeze a runner home in the midst of a late comeback; Tuesday, his sacrifice bunt scored senior Patrick Wingfield in the eighth for the winning run. Yesterday, with freshman Jarrett Parker on second and freshman Tyler Biddix on third with no outs and the score 7-4 in favor of Towson, Miclat elected to bunt again. This one was even better than the one the night before, as a hard bunt down the right side of the infield forced the first basemen to come off the bag and play it, scoring Biddix and moving Parker to third, while Miclat reached first without a throw. Sophomore Tyler Cannon then flied to right, scoring Parker. Grovatt's pop-out to short, however, ended the ninth-inning rally.
In its loss last night, Virginia did not face a deficit until the fourth. After sophomore Jeff Lorick went down with a knee injury in warmups, according to O'Connor, Rule, a usual reliever who sported 9.58 ERA coming into the game, was called upon to make the start. The transfer from William & Mary got off to a positive start with some help; after the first two batters of the game reached on a walk and a single, Rule fanned the next batter on a 3-2 pitch with both runners moving on a hit-and-run, and sophomore catcher Franco Valdes threw out the runner going to third for a strike-him-out, throw-him-out double play. The next batter then singled, apparently scoring the runner from second, but the umpire upheld an appeal by Virginia that he failed to touch home, negating the run and ending the inning with the third out.
In the fourth, however, Rule was not so fortunate -- he allowed four hits, including a solo homer to start the inning, while recording just a single out before being pulled for freshman Robert Morey.
"I think it's just a confidence thing," O'Connor said of Rule's struggles this season. "He went out there and gave us three solid innings [Wednesday], but unfortunately the fourth inning unraveled on him."
Morey didn't fare much better; he allowed two more hits and a walk that led to five more runs, three charged to Rule and two to Morey before the inning was over. The Tigers added another run to Morey's line for their seventh and final run of the game, giving them as much of a cushion as they would need.
In the early stages of Tuesday's game, the Virginia offense was also effective against Towson's starting pitcher, as junior Austin Hurd allowed four runs in the first inning. Poutier's implosion for six runs in the second, however, erased the Cavalier lead, and a back-and-forth battle ensued; Virginia took the lead back to 8-6 in the sixth, and Towson knotted the score at eight in the eighth before Miclat bunted the winning run home. Senior Michael Schwimer pitched a perfect ninth to seal the win.
Virginia next faces one of its most daunting opponents of the season: No. 2 Florida State, in a three-game series in Tallahassee, Fla.
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