Coming off a career-best 4.2 innings of relief in Friday’s 9-2 loss at Illinois State, Creighton freshman right-hander Matt Warren wasn’t expected to pitch deep into the game against visiting South Dakota State (25-17, 10-6 Summit). Warren, however, gave Bluejays skipper Ed Servais no choice but to stick with him as he tossed 7.2 innings of one-hit, shutout baseball to key Creighton’s 7-1 victory over the Jackrabbits at TD Ameritrade Park.
Warren allowed his first base runner of the game with a one-out walk to Jackrabbit catcher Reid Clary in the top of third, and he allowed his only hit of the game, again with one out, on a single to right field in the top of the fourth off the bat of SDSU right fielder Scott Splett. Neither runner advanced to second base. Warren retired 12 straight before being removed after a two-out walk in the top of the eighth inning, walking off the mound to a well-deserved standing ovation after executing a game plan to near perfection.
“I know I didn’t have a lot of velocity on the fastball, but I just tried to spot up and keep the changeup working,” he said after the game. “I just tried to pitch to contact like Coach [Servais] always preaches.”
Warren struck out two of the first four hitters he faced, then allowed his defense to make the plays behind him.
“I love it — up tempo,” said third baseman Federico Castagnini. “If you have to sit there for a while it’s hard to play every pitch as a defender if it’s 20-30 seconds in between pitches. That’s a long time. But if they go like that, you know 10 seconds, get it back, throw it there, throw strikes, it’s perfect for us.”
Castagnini provided Warren with support offensively as well. He reached on a single in the bottom of the first and later scored on a wild pitch to put Creighton on the board early. Then after the Jackrabbits trimmed the lead to 4-1 in eighth, “Freddy” as his teammates call him, delivered a clutch two-run double to the gap in right-center with one out in the bottom of the inning.
“I had two strikes and [SDSU reliever Talon Jumper] had a good splitter. I was looking for fastball, but I had that splitter in the back of my mind. He elevated one and I was able to drive it.”
Castagnini finished 2-for-3 on the evening, driving in two runs, and scoring twice himself.
The situational hitting combined with Warren’s performance gave Servais some things to feel good about going forward.
“Not only did we win tonight’s game and Matt did a great job, but he gave us a chance for the weekend to rest some of our bullpen guys,” he said. “He’s been pitching much better his last two or three times, and this is the kind of stuff we’re going to need in that conference tournament if we expect to go through it and play until Saturday. You got to have more than one or two pitchers and you can’t use your bullpen every day.”
Win: Matt Warren (2-2) (7.2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 2 K)
Loss: Shane Kraemer (2-2) (4 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 5 BB, 3 K)
Time: 2 hr 33 min
Attendance: 2,694