Receiving the broom treatment in Springfield, Missouri this past weekend, Bradley baseball was in need for some luck to go their way.
“There was definitely some frustration and stuff this weekend after how the games went, but we’re a close-knit group,” junior catcher Logan Delgado said before Tuesday’s game. “I think today it’ll be a good turnaround and we’ll start moving forward in the right direction.”
Whether the right direction was envisioned as a three-hit, 5-4 victory over Southern Illinois-Edwardsville (19-12) Tuesday night, it didn’t matter because the Braves (11-17, 3-6) snapped their five-game losing streak.
Catching the Cougars
Sophomore right-handed pitcher Anthony Potthoff was assigned the starting duty for the clash with SIUE. In his first inning, the Cougars went three up, three down and handed it to the Braves offense. Bradley’s junior leadoff man Ryan Vogel, who leads the MVC in batting average, doubled to begin the Braves attack. He crossed home on a sacrifice fly from Delgado for a 1-0 advantage.
Potthoff continued dotting pitches over the zone and struck out his fourth batter of the game in the second inning; however, the Cougars hit a inside-the-park solo shot to left that evened the score at one. The visitors took the lead in the third after an RBI single from SIUE’s Brennan Orf.
In the fourth, both teams traded runs with the Braves earning theirs when senior Connor Manthey grounded out to shortstop, allowing junior Jackson Chatterton to race home and shrink the deficit to 3-2. Vogel and senior Connor O’Brien hit back-to-back home runs in the fifth to retake the lead at 4-3.
Bradley redshirt freshman Noah Edders struck out the side in the sixth and the Braves paid the favor in the bottom inning with another groundout RBI from the bat of Delgado to bring in the speedy Vogel and push the Braves’ lead to 5-3.
Graduate closer Connor Langrell gave up a run in the ninth but stranded the tying run at third, completing the Braves tightrope-like victory and picking up his MVC-leading eighth save.
“Gut-wrenching”
Before Bradley’s much-needed win on Tuesday night, Braves’ head coach Elvis Dominguez seemed almost at a loss for words for what happened against Missouri State this past weekend.
“It was unbelievable; all of a sudden we just imploded,” Dominguez said. “It was definitely a gut-wrenching weekend because we had leads going into the latter part of the game and just weren’t able to hold it on the pitching side. We created all our messes.”
The Braves held leads of two, four and three respectively in the three-game series. They couldn’t hang on to any.
In the first matchup early Friday afternoon, Bradley’s one-two punch set the tone early. After Vogel was plunked, Delgado sent the junior home on an RBI double for the quick 1-0 lead. That lead swelled to two when sophomore Michael Mylott singled home Chatterton in the second inning.
Missouri State knotted the game in the bottom half of the second but waited until the eighth to grow a 4-2 lead. Bradley scored one and put the tying run on second with one out, but a flyout and strikeout halted the comeback attempt short, losing 4-3.
Returning to Hammons Field Saturday, the Braves sent out sophomore Jacob Norris for his first career start on the bump. If there was any concern about nerves, the right hander shut them down immediately.
“That first inning [I] got a two-spot [from the offense] which really boosted my confidence to put up zeros,” Norris said. “The changeup to the lefties and changeup away was our go-to pitch for the weak contact along with the fastball up. They seemed pretty late on it.”
Holding a 5-1 edge, Norris returned to the hill for the seventh inning having given up just one run on two hits at that point. Three consecutive singles from the Bears loaded the bags with nobody out and suddenly, Norris was facing his first challenge of the game.
Following a meeting at the mound, the sophomore struck out Missouri State’s pinch-hitter Cody Kelly but allowed two runs to score on a single and bases-loaded walk. It took two more pitchers on the mound for Bradley to exit the inning, but by then, the Bears had added seven and now led 8-5. The Braves mounted a short rally, but fell 9-7.
Regardless of the outcome, Dominguez saw exactly what he wanted to see from his sophomore starter.
“He’s a guy that we’ve been building up an inning here, an inning there,” Dominguez said. “He was battling some back issues but now he’s healthy. He was a guy that we were counting on early but weren’t able to use in the first part of the season. I’m hoping he can repeat what he did this past weekend.”
In the series finale Sunday, the bats were explosive right out of the gate. Freshman Mason Breidenbach clubbed his first career home run in the first inning, but Edders allowed a grand slam in the bottom inning. After just one inning, the Bears were up 4-3.
O’Brien tallied two runs for the Braves in the next two innings, putting them up 7-4. Vogel lifted one to left in the fifth inning, allowing sophomore Cal McGinnis to score on the deep fly and put the visitors ahead 8-5.
A treacherous seventh inning recaptured the lead for Missouri State thanks to a single to center field, but O’Brien came up clutch in the eighth and sent a solo shot out, tying the game at nine.
Looking for a comeback win to avoid the series sweep, McGinnis squeezed a single through left field, sending Harris home and taking a 10-9 lead. Unfortunately for the Braves, Langrell was exposed for the first time all season, walking his first two batters and eventually allowing the second grand slam of the game to walk-off Missouri State’s sweep of Bradley.
Climbing the mountain
The frustration boiled over as the Braves continued to struggle with placing pitches in the strike zone. The Bears sat back on Bradley’s team, daring them to throw strikes at times. Over the weekend, the rotation walked a total of 24 batters in the series, including 14 in Sunday’s loss. It invoked a strong response from the Braves’ head coach.
“We don’t practice throwing balls, and it’s becoming a mental issue more than anything else,” Dominguez said, pointing both index fingers to his temple. “There are a lot of tough terrains in the world, a lot of mountains that are high, but the toughest terrain is eight inches long and it’s spread between your ears.”
Bradley ranks in the cellar of the MVC by a wide margin when it comes to walks, having given up 162 passes – 19 more than the next closest team. Norris provided some insight on how the Braves are trying to combat their habit of giving free passes to hitters.
“We’re gonna walk people, we’re human beings,” Norris said. “We want to limit the walks in groups. If we’re going to walk someone, just have it be one and then move on.”
“[Pitching coach Andrew Werner] says basically flush it as fast as you can,” Norris added. “For me, it’s just good visuals. If you have good visuals, you’ll make the good pitch and that really helps.”
Ideally, the Braves hope to have more games like the one they played on Tuesday, where the team struck out 11 batters and failed to walk a single one. They’ll hope to take that into the weekend as Valparaiso lends itself as the next opponent. The Beacons (11-14, 2-7) provide an opportunity for the Braves to seek some momentum at home.
With Bradley tied for seventh in the conference but still just two games out of third, the log-jammed Valley is not in the realm of out of reach yet. Bradley’s series against Valparaiso kicks off tonight at 6 p.m.
