Sophomore right-hander Keith Rogalla was as efficient as ever over eight strong innings, and Creighton’s bullpen closed out a tense ninth inning to earn a 2-1 win over Jacksonville on Sunday to clinch the three-game series after dropping game one on Friday.
With the offense still stuck in neutral most of the day, Rogalla carried the Bluejays. He scattered four hits, three of which were singles, didn’t walk a single batter for the second time in his last three outings, and didn’t allow a single Jacksonville hitter to reach second base until the seventh inning.
“I felt great,” Rogalla said. “My command of the fastball was great, and just getting the breaking ball over early for strikes made it a lot easier to pitch, especially if you’re ahead one strike. The plan today was just to keep it low in the zone. We know they’re a good hitting team, but we know we can work with keeping it low in the zone and let the defense work.”
Rogalla, who also struck out four hitters, had not gone more than seven innings in a start since April 11 of last season, but he tied his career-high with the eight innings against the Dolphins, and needed only 82 pitches to get his 24 outs. He lowered his 2016 earned run average from 4.87 to 3.52 in the process.
“Keith has had three really good outings,” Creighton head coach Ed Servais said. “I’m really impressed with his strike throwing — no walks again. He’s getting his secondary pitches over, and he did a great job fielding his position today. After a slow start he collected himself. He could have felt sorry for himself, but he collected himself and pitched like he knows he’s capable of, and like we know he’s capable of the last three times. It came at a good time, because now we’re about to enter conference play.”
The offensive side of things took a little while to warm up to Sunday’s contest. After failing to put a runner on base the first time through the order, center fielder Daniel Woodrow’s speed got the Bluejays in business his second time up when he led off the bottom of the fourth inning. Woodrow singled up the middle against Jacksonville starting pitcher Spencer Stockton, then took off for second base on the next pitch and despite apparently being thrown out was awarded the bag on a balk by Stockton. He moved over to third on errant pick-off attempt by Stockton on the very next play, and came home to score easily when senior second baseman Ryan Fitzgerald drove the Jacksonville right-hander’s 1-0 offering into right field for an RBI double to put Creighton up 1-0. Fitzgerald added to the lead two batters later when he came home to score on senior first baseman Reagan Fowler’s sacrifice fly to shallow right field.
That would be all the run support the pitching staff would get, however, as it looked like Creighton was headed for another collapse similar to the one they had in the 4-3 loss in game one on Friday night.
Jacksonville pushed across a run against Rogalla in the seventh inning to cut the deficit in half, and thanks to a throwing error by normally sure-handed shortstop Nicky Lopez. Combined with a well-executed hit and run by the Dolphins, the Jays found themselves dealing with men on the corners in the ninth inning with nobody out. Ninety feet was all that separated the Dolphins from sending another game into extra innings, and they had three outs to pull it off.
Fortunately for the Bluejays, their bullpen was up to the task. Senior left-hander John Oltman struck out Jacksonville third baseman Sam Armstrong for the first out, then senior right-hander Connor Miller retired the final two hitters via strikeout and fly out to shallow center field to end the threat, and send Creighton into the first weekend of Big East play with an overall record of 18-6.
“We made it interesting,” Servais said of the tense final frame. “Nicky makes that play 99 out of 100 times, but he got sped up a bit, which happens in that type of game. They did a tremendous job of pulling back on the bunt and executing a hit and run to give them first and third. The good news is the information we had on the next hitter was he hits .129 against left-handed pitching, and John had struck him out on Friday, so we had him sitting there to get him out, and we were fortunate to have Connor on the back side. Sometimes we don’t have Connor on a Sunday, but we had him, so we were able to manipulate the inning like we wanted to. The key was John Oltman striking that hitter out. That gave us a chance to believe we could get out of the inning with a win and not a tie.”
Jacksonville nearly pushed across the tying run against Miller when with one out, shortstop JJ Gould tried to squeeze home right fielder Austin Hays with a bunt down the first base line. Gould was able to drop it down, but as he sprinted by Miller, the senior remained patient and watched for the ball to spin into foul territory before picking it up.
“I didn’t see him breaking, and then once he bunted I could just tell it was going to go foul,” Miller said. “I wasn’t going to panic or anything. I saw it was rolling and the catcher was talking too, so that helped.”
Two pitches later, Miller got Gould to go down swinging, then induced a game-ending fly ball to center field against pinch-hitter Nathan Koslowski to earn his second save of the season and clinch the weekend series for Bluejays, who are now 17-1 over their last six weekend series.
With no mid-week games coming up, Creighton will turn their focus to the start of Big East play. First up will be a three-game set against the Seton Hall Pirates (20-8) outscored Quinnipiac, 23-4, in a three-game sweep this weekend in South Orange, N.J., and are now sporting a 13-2 record over their last 15 games. The two teams will kick things off on Friday night at TD Ameritrade Park. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. (CST).