By Tucker Paquette
@tpaquette17
Springfield College baseball lost 9-2 to Amherst on Tuesday afternoon on Archie Allen Field, as the team’s pitching and offense struggled to keep them in the game.
The Pride found themselves down by two runs after the top of the third, a frame that saw a combination of two wild pitches, two base hits and a walk allow Amherst to generate consistent traffic on the bases.
It was a similar story in the top of the fourth and fifth innings. The Mammoths notched two extra base hits and tallied a pair of steals in the fourth that helped bring two more runners across the plate, then a two-run home run by third baseman Tyler McCord pushed their lead to 6-0 in the fifth inning.
From there, Amherst tacked on three more runs over the final four innings, but it had built a comfortable enough lead to breathe easily the rest of the game.
First-year right-hander Josh Mayo took the ball for Springfield, and his performance was a mixed bag. He fared well in the first two innings, but the next 1.1 innings he pitched saw three earned runs charged to his name.
Graduate assistant coach Arlo Pike thought Mayo looked good in the early going, but faded over the course of his start. He believes this was influenced by struggles locating his pitches.
“First couple innings were pretty good,” Pike said. “I won’t say he ran out of steam, but I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. He didn’t know how to command the pitches as much as he’d like to, and that gets tough to keep seeing the same guys over and over again. You get to line up once or twice, and it’s tough to mix things up if not everything’s on. And those guys, they swung it well.”
Springfield’s offense also wasn’t at their best on Tuesday. While they did tally seven hits, including a third-inning solo home run by Nate Garafalo, runners left on base was an issue throughout the afternoon for the Pride. All told, they stranded 11 runners.
Pike believes a more aggressive approach at the plate is one way the Pride can drive in runners more effectively.
“Swinging to drive the baseball, do damage,” Pike said. “Coming up, realizing those opportunities don’t happen all that often. So it kind of goes back to just coming up, looking to do damage. Drive a guy in, get on base yourself, get someone going.”
With the loss, the Pride drop to 0-3 on the season after losing both legs of Saturday’s double-header against Western New England. Pike believes it’s important for the Pride to embrace the challenge and keep pushing.
“If there’s any group that can do it, it’s these guys,” Pike said. “We’ve faced a lot of adversity already. Start off 0-3, it’s easy for teams to start pointing fingers. We’ve talked a lot about changing this culture. And it’s about how they respond, sticking together. Realizing we play 35 more games, got a long ways to go. And this doesn’t define the rest of the week, the rest of the semester, whatever. Just looking to see how they respond to adversity.”
The Pride’s next chance to do just that will come on Sunday, Mar. 9 when they host a non-conference doubleheader against MCLA. First pitch of game one is set for noon.
(Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics)