Pitching mistakes prove costly in baseball’s losses

Pitching is like real estate: If you don’t have location, you don’t have anything.

Saturday,… Pitching is like real estate: If you don’t have location, you don’t have anything.

Saturday, Pitt’s pitchers struggled to find the plate in the Panthers’ doubleheader against Rutgers, and as a result, the baseball team dropped two Big East games. In both contests, untimely walks by the Panthers led to runs that the team couldn’t afford to give up.

Andrew Kuss started the first game and had problems for all of his four-plus innings. His struggle for control saw him walk four batters, one of which turned into a run when he balked home Rutgers’ Jeff Grose in the third inning.

The deceiving box score shows that Kuss only gave up one run. What it doesn’t show is that he ran deep counts on many of the batters he faced. This is quite a change from his last outing, a masterful performance against Canisius that saw him strike out 11 batters in just five and a third innings pitched.

Nothing head coach Joe Jordano did could stop the problem. After Kuss gave up a leadoff single to Grose in the fifth, Jordano decided it was time for the bullpen. His choice of a reliever was a simple one.

“Shaun Butler’s been just lights-out,” he said of his junior hurler. But in reaching for water to put out what was, at the moment, a very small fire, Jordano accidentally grabbed the gasoline.

Butler got out of the fifth intact, but walked the second batter in the sixth, which opened the floodgates. He struck out Todd Frazier, but then Rutgers followed with three consecutive hits, which led to three runs and a 4-3 Scarlet Knights lead. The next inning, he walked the first two batters, which turned into another run after a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly. Jordano was impressed with Rutgers’ offense, but admitted that the walks were what set Pitt up for disaster.

“They hit a couple of good pitches [after the walks] and that was the ballgame,” he said. “If you look at that first game, three of their runs that touched the plate were via walks.”

Things didn’t get much better for the Panthers in the nightcap.

Pitt starter Don Rhoten walked Frazier to start the game, and Rutgers followed with a single and a sacrifice fly to grab a 1-0 cushion right away. Rhoten didn’t allow another base on balls to a Scarlet Knight until the sixth, but as soon as he did, trouble followed. After David Williams walked, the Knights followed with a single, a suicide squeeze to score Williams from third and a two-run home run from Frazier.

In any other game, this might not have been a fatal blow. But given that the Panthers’ offense didn’t get a hit off Rutgers starter Steve Holt until the seventh inning, the four-run lead was a tough deficit to make up.

After Eli Friedman relieved Rhoten and gave up two runs in two innings, walks again caught up with the Panthers. Mike Bassage entered the game in the top of the ninth and walked the leadoff batter. Reminiscent of the first inning, a sacrifice fly to center and a single followed and a base on balls led to yet another Rutgers run. Jordano could only shake his head.

“I consider walks a mistake,” he explained. “We made mistakes and they took advantage. When they made mistakes, we didn’t capitalize. That’s the difference.”