Baseball struggles, sees seventh straight loss

In sports, streaks are two-way streets.

For the Pitt baseball team, there’s recently been… In sports, streaks are two-way streets.

For the Pitt baseball team, there’s recently been a traffic jam on the winning side of the road, while the losing lane has provided an all-too-inviting avenue.

Pitt started the year 17-7, going on multiple four- and three-game winning streaks. However, Louisville captured a series sweep over the weekend, and the Panthers are now in midst of a six-game drought..

Still, Pitt coach Joe Jordano believes the team can and will prevail moving forward.

‘We have to believe in what we do and go out and do it every pitch,’ he said.

‘I remain very confident that we will be in good shape come end of the season.’

After dropping the opener to Louisville, 7-3, believing would’ve been tough, especially after being swept by South Florida the previous weekend. But Pitt displayed tenacity and almost managed two victories before falling short in extra innings on both occasions.

In the second of three games, Pitt’s bats remained in their caves, as the typically offensive Panthers managed just one hit on the day. Sophomore pitcher Corey Baker kept Pitt in the game with a strong pitching performance. He went seven innings and allowed just one earned run on five hits.

The cold plate performance resulted in the 1-0 defeat.

In the weekend finale, Pitt played a strong all-around game, but again came up short in extra innings, as Louisville scored on a last at bat to win 3-2.

The consecutive extra-innings defeats were disappointing for Jordano.

‘We’ve had some tough breaks and have lost three games in extra innings,’ said Jordano, referring to a 10-8 defeat to South Florida. ‘We need to pitch a little better and come up with some big hits.’

But Jordano realized the competition might make that difficult.

‘We are currently in a stretch of facing some very tough competition,’ he said. ‘At this point in the schedule, we have played three teams that are in the top half of the conference standings. Each week is a dogfight. Every team in the conference can beat any other team on any given day … We simply have to focus on what we do best and continue on that road.’

There’s a temptation to change strategies when success is elusive, but Jordano and his team plan to persevere through consistency.

‘We will not change much,’ said Jordano. ‘We have to believe in what we do and go out and do it on every pitch.’

In times of trouble, a team can benefit by learning from mistakes and taking something positive to move forward. That process is on tap for Pitt.

‘We’ve had the lead late in four of the six games we’ve lost,’ said Jordano. ‘We just simply need to finish. I am confident we will do that.’