Liberty walked into the opening weekend buzzsaw known as Duke. Before tonight, Duke hit a whopping 16 home runs. After the game, Duke has hit a whopping 16 home runs. In other words, Liberty did what two top-25 teams failed to do–keep the Duke hitters in the yard. And Liberty gave up 11 fewer home runs to Duke than George Mason. While the Flames did not win, they stopped the buzzsaw.
The pitchers did their jobs. Starter Nick Moran pitched well in the first two innings, but in the 3rd, he ran into trouble. Single, single, double, HBP, single turned into three runs, which was the difference in the game. He gave up a double in the 4th that Ryan Butler could not strand.
From that point on, Flames relievers Butler, Talor Grubbs, and Trey Cooper only gave up four hits through the last five innings. While they did not have gaudy strike out numbers, they (along with Moran) gave up zero free passes.
The pitchers did everything they could do to keep Liberty in the game. There is no shame in giving up four runs to the Duke juggernaut. The top-25 teams could not hold Duke to that few runs.
The hitters on the other hand were baffled all night long but Duke’s pitchers. They made the most of their hits scoring the two runs on only three hits and one walk, but three hits will seldom be enough no matter how good Liberty’s pitchers are.
All five of the pitchers that Liberty faced were nasty, especially Nard, Johnson, and Beilenson. Liberty scored an unearned run off of Johnson when Noah Rabon turned a double into three bases. The left fielder bobbled the ball, and Rabon aggressively took 3rd in a close play. Camden Troyer hit a high chopper that scored Rabon to cut the lead to 4-2.
In the 8th, Macaddin Dye worked a walk, and Todd Hudson pinch hit for Tanner Marsh with a chance to tie the game with a big blast. On this night, it wasn’t to be though. Hudson hit into a fielder’s choice, and the next four Flames batters could not get on base.
There is no gain in belaboring the tough game that the hitters had. Unlike in the past when Duke was sending Jimmy to the mound and Jimmy was giving up hits and runs, they took this game very seriously and sent their closer to the mound. Beilenson will very likely be top 5 nastiest pitcher the Flames face this year. He threw nothing but filthy 78-82 mph offspeed pitches through about his first 6 or 7, and then mixed in his 94 mph fastball.
Losing is never fun, but there are some positives to take away from this game. Last year, Flames pitchers had trouble with control and command, which led to lots of walks and fat pitches in the zone because they were behind in the count. Tonight against a big hitting team, Liberty didn’t issue a single walk.
Another problem last year was strike outs. Facing a staff like this one would have led to 10-12 strikeouts, maybe more than that even. Tonight the hitters struck out only eight times with Brayden Horton accounting for three of them in his first full game hitting.
Lastly, Liberty went toe-to-toe with a true Omaha contender. Last year’s team did not have this in them. This year’s team does. The upcoming series with ECU and CCU are going to be huge.
