Maryland baseball splits midweek games vs. regional foes

It was a tale of two games for Maryland during the midweek, this week. The Terps had two regional games, one against Georgetown, and one at VCU. Here’s how the Terps fared:

Tuesday: Maryland 14, Georgetown 5

It was a rout for the Terps against their DMV foe Georgetown at The Bob on Tuesday. With first pitch moved up from 4:00 to 2:00, Maryland was able to score early and often. The Terps put up 7 in the first, despite only recording one hit in the inning. Sam Hojnar and Alex Calarco homered for the Terps later in the game as well. Ryan Van Buren pitched a career-high in innings (6) and struck out a career high 7. Duke McCarron pitched the final three innings. Senior Jake Hyde led the way for Georgetown, homering in his first two at-bats.

Wednesday: VCU 15, Maryland 7

The Terps tried to continue their momentum Wednesday in Richmond and had a strong start, but Maryland’s bullpen was unable to hold up late in the game. The Terps were able to once again jump out in front early leading 4-0 after three thanks to a few VCU walks, and an Eddie Hacopian two-run single. VCU cut into the lead making it 6-3 heading to the bottom of the 7th, but that was where it went south. It started when Aden Hill hit a three-run homer tying the game at 6. Two Maryland errors and three singles later, the Rams led 11-6. By the time the 7th inning was over, VCU had scored 12 times, making the score 15-6. Maryland was able to scratch one across in the ninth, but it was not nearly enough. Omar Melendez started for Maryland and went four while giving up two. Garrett French and Nate Haberthier struggled mightily combining to record no outs and allowing ten runs (eight of them earned).

Takeaways:

Offense continues to not be a problem

Early in the season, the Terps have showed that despite losing six starters from last year’s lineup, Maryland continues to produce at the plate. The Terps have now scored 13 runs in the first inning of their two home games this season. They’ve scored at least five runs in eight of their nine games played, and haven’t scored less than three in a game.

Defense continues to be a problem

Maryland’s defense was not great last season, and so far this season it has not been great. The Terps have made at least one error in six of their name games so far, and they have now made 11 errors on the season after committing four on Wednesday. Four the runs that VCU scored were unearned. Maryland is going to have to make sure that their defense gets cleaner for when conference play rolls around.

First Bullpen Blowup of 2024

It’s no secret that the Terps bullpen struggled at times last season. So far this season, it has looked much better, but Wednesday was a game that looked similar to 2023. The Terps were leading late, and then one implosion inning from the bullpen was what essentially ended the game. Garrett French and Nate Habertheir struggled mightily, and the bullpen surrendered 13 hits and 13 runs (nine of them earned) in the final four innings.

Up next:

Maryland will welcome a familiar non-conference opponent to College Park this weekend the Bryant Bulldogs from the America East. This will be Bryant’s fifth trip to College Park since 2016, but their first since 2020 (the Bulldogs were the last weekend series that Maryland played before the pandemic). Bryant is 1-4 after two of their games in the opening weekend were not finished and canceled due to weather. The Bulldogs fell to Stonehill 5-3 on Tuesday.

All three games can be streamed on Big Ten Plus. All Maryland Baseball games are available for free to listen to on the Maryland Baseball Network.