Three runs in the bottom of the first inning, two of which were unearned, was all the offense Creighton would get in Friday night’s Big East opener, and despite a late-inning rally by Seton Hall, it was enough to prevail with a 3-1 win over the Pirates to improve to 19-6 overall and 1-0 in conference play.
“3-1, 2-1, 4-3, at least we’re winning though,” Creighton senior first baseman Reagan Fowler said of his team’s production at the plate. Fowler went 1-for-3 in the win, driving in a run and scoring one himself.
“[Winning is] the biggest key, but there’s more that we need to do,” Fowler added. “We need to get to five runs. If we get to five our chances of winning are super high.”
Creighton capitalized on a comedy of errors by Seton Hall their first time up to bat. A walk by leadoff hitter Daniel Woodrow got things rolling, then Pirates catcher Mike Alescio failed to handle a bunt by Ryan Fitzgerald and instead tried to catch Woodrow sleeping after he reached third base on the play. Alescio’s throw sailed over his third baseman and into left field, allowing Woodrow to score easily.
The Bluejays brought home their second run of the frame when Fowler singled through the left side of a drawn-in infield with one out. It was an encouraging piece of execution from the senior out of Omaha. He has struggled throughout the season, but when he’s in top form he’s driving in runs and using the whole field. The base hit both added to his RBI total for the season and boosted his confidence seeing a ball get through the infield to the opposite field.
“To start they were deep and then they kind of moved in as the pitcher came set, so I was just trying to look for a ball up,” Fowler said. “He left one out and I just kind of slapped it into that hole. It was good that it went through. I haven’t had many hits go through that six hole this year.”
“Coach has been talking to me about getting back to normal, just using the whole field,” he added. “I’ve kind of been a little earlier, my timing has been a little off, but it was good tonight with that first at-bat with a runner in scoring position to get it through that six hole.”
Fowler moved from first to third two pitches later when Brett Murray’s ground ball rolled under the glove of second baseman Mike Caputo and into right field. Fowler then came in to score when Pirates starting pitcher Shane McCarthy bounced a 1-2 pitch over his catcher’s head to give Creighton a 3-0 lead after just one inning.
Creighton managed only two singles the rest of the game, and failed to put even one player on base after the fourth inning. An issue that continues to frustrate both the coaches and the players, especially given that the team seems to shut down after a big inning instead of building off of it.
“It’s really a frustrating point,” Bluejay head coach Ed Servais said. “You look at tonight — three runs in one inning, Sunday — two runs in one inning, last Friday — three runs in one inning. We just have to learn to add on to take some pressure of these late inning situations.”
Sophomore ace right-hander Rollie Lacy was on his game, and from his perspective the offense did more than enough to allow him to do his job and get the win.
“It was a good team effort,” Lacy said. “The offense did another great job. It seems like we’ve been getting other teams on their heels right away almost every game, at least for me it feels like. Not only is that a big confidence boost for me, but it gets energy in the dugout and gets energy in our offense, so credit to them.”
Lacy tossed seven innings of three-hit ball, while scattering two walks and striking out a pair of Pirates to lower his earned run average to 2.19 and improve his record to 5-1 on the season. He allowed only four Seton Hall baserunners to get into scoring position while he was on the mound, and he left three of them stranded there.
“He threw a lot of two-seamers tonight, which got a lot of ground balls,” Servais said of Lacy’s approach against a speedy Seton Hall club. “You saw a lot of ground balls to our infielders, and with the exception of one they made all of the plays. That’s been his best pitch lately. This is probably as long as we’ve stretched him out — I think he threw 90+ pitches tonight, so anytime your Friday night guy gets you 21 outs that’s a big night, because not only did we win tonight’s game, but we’re in pretty good shape here for the next two. We have a lot of bullpen guys available, because we didn’t burn anybody tonight. Rollie did a great job. He’s getting us deep into games, and that’s all you can ask.”
Despite Lacy’s performance, the Pirates were never out of reach as McCarthy matched him with seven strong innings of his own for the Pirates. He allowed only four hits, walked one, and struck out five to keep his team in the game. In the top of the eighth inning they finally chased Lacy from the game and put a rally together to make things interesting for the Creighton bullpen.
Lacy put the first two men aboard when he drilled Alescio and walked pinch-hitter Matt Fortin. Senior reliever Nick Highberger came on from the bullpen to retire the next two hitters, including a big strikeout of Seton Hall’s top offensive Derek Jenkins. Left-hander John Oltman came on to finish the inning, but Seton Hall left fielder Zack Weigel doubled off of him to bring in a run and put the tying run in scoring position.
Ed Servais called on his junior closer, David Gerber, to clean up the mess. Gerber, who struggled in his last outing against in last Sunday’s series finale against Jacksonville, walked the first hitter he faced after two borderline pitches went against him with two strikes to load the bases. Gerber bounced back, however, to strike out the next hitter and end the inning, stranding the go-ahead run at first base. He started the ninth inning with two more strikeouts, then got Alescio to ground out harmlessly to Fowler at first base to earn his seventh save of the season and preserve Creighton’s 3-1 victory.
“That’s what you get out of Dave,” Servais said. “If he has one outing that’s not so good you don’t worry about it. He’s a really competitive guy. He prepares at a high level, so we knew he’d be out there again soon, whether it was tonight or not. That situation on Sunday didn’t really factor into how we were going to play tonight. He’s a competitive guy. He’s going to get a lot more save opportunities as we move forward.”
With game one in the bag, the Bluejays will send left-hander Jeff Albrecht (3-0, 1.14) to the mound as they try to clinch the series win on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. (CST) at TD Ameritrade Park. The Pirates (21-9, 0-1) will counter with freshman left-hander Dana Cullen and his 1.22 earned run average that ranks third in the nation among all freshman pitchers. Cullen has a perfect 5-0 record in his first season with the Pirates, and has struck out 35 hitters in his 37.0 innings of work in 2016.
“They’re throwing a good left-hander,” Servais said. “He’s got a good ERA below two. He’s going to pitch tomorrow, and I’m sure they’re disappointed with how they started the game. They really gave us a lot of opportunities. We didn’t really earn much in the first inning. They had a couple miscues in there to open up an opportunity for us to score those three runs, but they believe in this left-hander that they’re throwing tomorrow, and Jeff is going to have to really do a good job to keep the score down, because this guy is going to be a handful.”