The Rams (0-1) dropped their season opener Friday afternoon on the road against the Braves of UNC Pembroke (1-0) by a score of 12-1.
In the bottom of the first inning, the Braves made the Rams pay for their mistakes. Third baseman Drew Beaver of the Braves scored off of a wild pitch by redshirt-freshman pitcher Joe Rindone of the Rams to give the Braves a 1-0 lead.
Later in the inning, outfielder/infielder Nick Debo of the Braves hammered home a two-run double to increase the Braves’ lead to 4-0. Clearly, the Rams were on the ropes early.
With the same score still in the bottom of the fifth, infielder Seth Hartings of the Braves gave his team great separation room with his three-run homerun that deflated any chance of a Rams’ comeback. Shortly after, infielder Nick Salisbury scored on a fielder’s choice. Beaver then and again stepped up in big ways to hurt the Rams, this time blasting a two-run homerun to left center that opened up the floodgates for the Braves. At this point, the Rams fell behind 10-0.
Simply put, the Rams made too many mistakes early in the game that eventually caught up with them in the end. Falling behind by a great amount early, the Rams had little hopes of mounting a serious comeback.
The Rams did have their opportunities though. Getting eight hits in the game, the Rams were able to get on base, but proved unable to get the runners home.
In the sixth inning, the Rams had runners on first and third with one out. A balk by pitcher Anthony Burke of the Braves allowed B. Doyle of the Rams to score, but that was the only source of run support the Rams were able to generate.
Offensively, the Rams had great difficulties getting anything going. A big reason for this was the stellar pitching of pitcher Anthony Burke of the Braves. In the winning effort, he went six innings, threw five strikeouts, allowed one walk, and just one earned run. Reliever Cole Lovin of the Braves came in the seventh inning, allowing four hits, two strikeouts, and one walk, but most importantly, no earned runs to seal the 12-1 win.
Redshirt-freshman pitcher Joe Rindone of the Rams went 4.1 innings, striking out four, walking four, and allowed eight runs (six of them earned).
Offensively, freshman outfielder Brenton Doyle of the Rams had a 2-for-3 performance at the plate. Junior third baseman Chase Hoffman also went 2-for-4 at the plate on a day that the Rams could not drive home their baserunners.
These two teams will play again on Saturday at 1 p.m. in what will be the second game of their three-game series.
Anthony Bracken is the Sports Editor of The Picket. He can be reached at abrack02@rams.shepherd.edu