When both the offense and the pitching are playing to their potential, Binghamton University’s baseball team is tough to stop. Maryland-Baltimore County found this out the hard way over the weekend as the Bearcats won both games of a rain-shortened weekend series.
The teams were scheduled to play four games in Baltimore over the weekend, but the Sunday doubleheader was rained out, with the games not currently scheduled to be made up. Binghamton (23-15, 10-2 America East) won the Saturday opener, 10-0, and the night game, 9-3. The team’s two aces, senior Jeff Dennis and junior Murphy Smith, each pitched seven innings and picked up wins.
Binghamton has won 14 of its last 16 games and remains atop the America East standings.
“It’s a good sign, heading down the stretch,” said Binghamton head coach Tim Sinicki. “It proves the point that we felt all along, that we have the ability to be a good ball club if we had the opportunity and continued to work hard and put everything together.”
The weekend series began with dominant pitching and solid offense, which was a theme throughout the day.
The Bearcats opened their offense in the second inning with a pair of singles, a sacrifice fly and a passed ball to plate two runs. Binghamton blew the game open in the fourth inning, starting with a walk from sophomore Corey Taylor. Junior Joe Charron doubled Taylor in to expand the lead to 3-0. After a single and a sacrifice fly brought the lead to 4-0, junior leadoff man Jim Calderone delivered the big blow in the form of a two-RBI triple. It was his conference-leading fifth triple of the year.
Sophomore Peter Bregartner singled in Calderone to cap off the five-run inning for Binghamton. The team tacked on three more runs in the final three innings of the contest. All of this was more than enough for lefthander Jeff Dennis.
The senior threw a complete game, two-hit shutout. He walked just one and struck out five. The only UMBC batter to reach base after the third inning did so on an error. With his performance, Dennis is now 4-3 on the year with a 3.83 ERA, good for third in the conference. He has been even better in conference games, going 2-0 with a 2.45 ERA in three starts. Dennis was named AE Player of the Week yesterday due to his performance.
Not to be outdone, Smith put up a dominant performance of his own in the second game of the doubleheader. Smith, who has emerged as the team’s co-ace along with Dennis, pitched seven innings and struck out a season-high 13 batters. Sinicki said he appreciates the value of having two pitchers throwing this well.
“I think the guys play with a tremendous amount of confidence when [Dennis and Smith] are on the mound,” he said. “Everyone knows what they’re capable of doing and how good they’re capable of being. I think both our defense and our offense feed off of our starting pitching.”
His offense gave him some immediate support, scoring two runs on a Dave Ciocchi double. The freshman would be thrown out at the plate trying to score on a single. However, Smith would give one run right back, allowing a home run to the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the inning. Calderone hit a solo shot of his own in the third to give Binghamton a 3-1 lead. Smith’s only walk of the game came back to bite him, though, as it was one of two runners who scored on a two-run double in the bottom of the inning, tying the game. Smith settled down after that, allowing just two hits in his final four innings of work. He leads the conference with a 2.64 ERA, 7-1 record and 64 strikeouts.
Tied at three through six innings, Binghamton took the lead in the seventh on a double from Bregartner, and added another run in the eighth on a bases-loaded single from junior shortstop Jeff Abrams. The Bearcats tacked on four more in the ninth, and relievers Morgan Smith and Walker McKinven each threw a perfect inning to finish off the 9-3 victory.
The Bearcats had six steals in the second game, with two each coming from senior Kyle Klee and Taylor. Sinicki attributed the steals to favorable opportunities and to “how the game played itself out.” Ciocchi was 6-for-9 on the day with four RBIs. Despite being a freshman, in conference games he leads the America East in batting average and is tied for second in RBIs. Bregartner was 5-for-9 on Saturday, while Taylor had seven runs scored. With the offense and pitching doing so well, Sinicki cited defense as the key to the team’s continued success.
“Murphy Smith striking out 13 guys is not going to happen every time out and it’s not going to happen for every one of our pitchers,” Sinicki said. “Typically the ball is going to be put in play when we’re pitching, and the ability to defend is really what I think is going to be the difference down the stretch.”
The Bearcats are scheduled to play a four-game set against third place University of Maine (28-19, 9-7 AE), a team that Sinicki says will be “a challenge.” The Black Bears suffered a four-game sweep at the hands of second place University at Albany over the weekend.