After the High Point Panthers' poor pitching handed Duke many of its runs in a comeback win Tuesday, the baseball team's hurlers did in the Blue Devils as they lost, 13-5, to Elon yesterday afternoon.
A total of six pitchers took the mound for Duke (15-14) yesterday, and only two of them were able to keep Elon (14-15) from scoring. Senior Kevin Thompson suffered his second loss of the season, giving up eight runs in two and a third innings pitched. The Blue Devils' bullpen, while it has improved, was inconsistent again, combining to allow nine hits and five earned runs.
"Basically, we didn't pitch well," head coach Bill Hillier said. "Kevin Thompson had a chance to get out of the second inning and give up only one run, but we made an error, and then there were a couple of hits. We just had one of those days where things just did not go well for us."
The Blue Devils jumped out to an early 3-0 lead after the first inning when Mike Miello and Bryan Smith combined for the three RBIs.
Elon answered in the bottom of the inning with a run off a sacrifice fly in foul territory when Javier Socorro was not able to throw the ball in to catch Evan Tartaglia at home. However, that was just the beginning for the Phoenix, who scored eight more runs in the next three innings.
Elon's Evan Erickson reached first on a throwing error by Tim Layden, and Paul Bennett doubled to bring Erickson in for an unearned run. Then, with Bennett on second, Gary Morris homered deep into Latham Park's short leftfield porch.
In the third inning, Billy Muldowney relieved Thompson--he allowed four more runs in that inning and finished the day with just two strikeouts while walking three walks and scattering five hits--and was able to get out of the inning without further damage. That is, until the next inning, when he gave up just another run to the Phoenix.
Offensively, the Blue Devils struggled, as no one registered a multi-hit game against Elon starter Matt Chastain. Elon struck out six batters and allowed only two earned runs.
"[Chastain] did a good job pitching against us," Hillier said with a disappointed tone. "But, he wasn't overpowering, velocity-wise or anything. It was a guy that we should've been able to hit off of a little better than we did.... Hopefully, we'll get out offense going. We need to start scoring some runs to take the pressure off our pitching, and hopefully we can do that."
While Layden's home run in the fifth inning tightened the score to 9-5, the Phoenix would not relent and put up another four-run inning in the sixth. Though Duke was able to gather seven hits, it could not manufacture the runs that it has been able to recently.
Without consistency at the plate and on the mound, the Blue Devils could run into trouble with this weekend's three-game series against Virginia.
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