A poorly executed pick-off attempt and a disappearing act by the offense cost Ed Servais’ Creighton Bluejays their 10-game home winning streak in a 4-3 loss to the Jacksonville Dolphins on Friday night at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha.
After getting knocked around in the first two innings, sophomore right-handed pitcher Michael Baumann and the rest of the Jacksonville pitching staff locked up the Creighton offense. Over the final eight and 2/3 innings, Baumann and three relievers allowed only one hit — a single to right field in the bottom of the ninth inning — to limit the Bluejays while their offense chipped away at any early three-run deficit.
“Coach always talks about playing the full nine innings,” junior shortstop Nicky Lopez said. “It just seemed like right after we scored three our bats just kind of fell asleep. We hit the ball hard the whole time, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.”
Jacksonville gave the Bluejays some rope in the bottom of the second inning, and Creighton proceeded to hang them with it. They loaded the bases with the first three hitters without needing to leave the infield. Senior first baseman Reagan Fowler was hit by the second pitch of the inning, senior third baseman Harrison Crawford joined him on the base paths when Jacksonville third baseman Sam Armstrong couldn’t handle a grounder, and senior designated hitter Matt Gandy legged out an infield single with a bunt that died down the third base line to a Bluejay on every bag.
With three seniors aboard, junior right fielder Kevin Connolly and junior center fielder Daniel Woodrow delivered the big hits. Connolly came through first when he lined a 1-0 pitch into center field with the bases loaded to plate Fowler and Crawford. Woodrow then found the hole with a bouncing base hit between first and second to score Gandy and cap off the three-run frame as Creighton was unable to bring home any more runs despite having two men in scoring position with only one out.
“We had a chance to score a few more runs there — we had second and third with one out and we had scored three, and we let them off the hook,” Creighton head coach Ed Servais said. “Like a lot of good pitchers, [Baumann] found his rhythm and then bam, he started throwing his secondary pitches for strikes, and didn’t give us a lot of opportunities. We have to find a way to score four in that inning.”
The Dolphins rallied in the top of the fourth inning as they squared up Creighton ace right-hander Rollie Lacy. Right fielder Austin Hays led things off with an infield hit followed up by a double down the right field line by Armstrong, and a two-run, two-bagger to left-center field by shortstop JJ Gould to cut Creighton’s lead to 3-2 on just four pitches in the frame from Lacy. The Bluejays left Gould in scoring position when Harrison Crawford dove to his left to snag a sharp grounder headed for the outfield and fired it over to Fowler for the final out of the top of the fourth inning.
The comeback was completed in the top of the seventh inning when lead-off man Parker Perez drove an RBI single into left field to score junior left fielder Nathan Koslowski from second base with two outs. Koslowski singled off of Lacy to start the inning, but was almost left on base after a sac bunt and a grounder back to the pitcher left him 180 feet away from home plate with two outs before Perez came through against Lacy.
Creighton’s sophomore ace surrendered nine hits and allowed three earned runs over his six and two-thirds innings of work, but ultimately fell one hitter short of handing off a one-run lead to a normally lights out bullpen.
“I threw that first pitch slider and we were going to go off speed with him,” Lacy said. “I threw the second one in the zone, which is what I wanted to do, but it came in and it was just a little bit up, and the guy made a good swing on it and unfortunately it went right over Nicky to score that run. It was my job to get that guy out, and if after that inning we hand it to the bullpen I think it’s a pretty large shot that that’s our game to win. I think that was a key factor in the game in terms of it was something that we just didn’t get done or didn’t execute.”
With the offense on ice for the evening, a defensive miscue in the top of the 10th inning did the Bluejays in for good. With two outs in the Jacksonville half of the 10th inning, and pinch-runner Michael Babb on second base, Creighton junior closer David Gerber caught him in no man’s land on a play that his defense could execute a thousand times over in their sleep, but this time they couldn’t finish off the pick off play and escape the 10th inning. With a couple players in the wrong position, Babb slid safely back into second base, then immediately cashed in on the blunder when catcher Franco Guardascione singled through the right side of the infield to plate the winning run.
“We didn’t execute it,” Lopez said of the blunder. “We run that play 100 times in practice and we just didn’t execute it … it shouldn’t have happened.”
Even from his spot on the dugout steps, Rollie Lacy felt the same way as Lopez regarding the mistake that ultimately led to Creighton’s first home loss in 11 games at TD Ameritrade Park this season.
“That was a dagger to our team,” Lacy said. “That’s a drill we work on every day in practice, so not executing that I’m sure Coach is going to talk to us about it here, but before he even does everyone in the dugout and in the field knows that’s something that should have been completed. The game takes a whole different turn there if we get that guy out. The whole thing is we need to execute to go from instead of a good team to becoming a great team. That was absolutely a dagger for us, in the 10th inning especially.”
The Bluejays got the tying run in scoring position in the bottom half of the 10th inning, but freshman right-hander Mike Cassala got Lopez to ground out down the first base line to earn his seventh save of the season and improve the Dolphins to 17-8 overall in 2016.
Creighton fell to 16-6 overall with their second consecutive loss, and first in a weekend series since February 21. On the evening, the Bluejays managed only one hit after the second inning, while going 3-for-16 with runners on base, and 0-for-10 with two outs.
“It didn’t come down to that one pitch [in the bottom of the seventh], it didn’t come down to the pitch in the 10th inning, we just didn’t do anything offensively after the second inning,” Servais said.
“We stopped hitting after the second inning. You just put so much pressure on the other parts of your game when you don’t provide any offense. We’ll just keep plugging along, but I don’t know what it’s going to take for our offense to start doing a little bit more.”
For their part, the players admitted they let one get away, while understanding that they won’t have to wait long for their next chance to get back on track.
“We didn’t play to our fullest potential, obviously, and we’re going to beat ourselves up about that,” Lopez said. “The good thing about baseball is we have another opportunity tomorrow and Sunday.
“We’ll make the adjustments that we need to, and we’ll be ready for tomorrow.”
Creighton (16-6) is expected to send junior left-hander Jeff Albrecht (2-0, 1.56) to the mound for game two tomorrow afternoon. Jacksonville (17-8) will counter with junior right-hander Nathan Disch (3-2, 3.07). First pitch is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. (CST) at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha.