The Massachusetts baseball team currently sits in seventh place in the Atlantic 10 standings and has found success against conference pitchers this season.
UMass (11-17, 5-4 A-10) is coming off a loss against Big East opponent Connecticut, 18-3 on Monday. UConn is one of the non-conference opponents which has been hurting the Minutemen side this season.
In 19 non-conference matchups UMass is 6-13 compared to an above .500 win percentage against A-10 talent.
“They have very good pitching, they have good defense and they hit the ball,” said UMass coach Mike Stone about playing against non-conference opponents.
In nine games this season UMass has scored 86 runs averaging over 9.5 a game, compared to scoring 99 runs in 13 non-conference game, an average of about 7.6 per outing.
UMass is also coming off an offensive outburst over the weekend against Temple, scoring 48 runs in its three-game series including a 25-10 win in the series finale on Sunday. The 25 runs scored was the most in UMass school history against an A-10 opponent.
In the Minutemen’s previous two A-10 series against George Washington and Dayton, they scored 19 runs. The Minutemen have won two of their first three conference series this season.
“Really everybody stood out over the weekend, with multiple hits and multiple RBIs,” said Stone. “Everyone just looked really comfortable in the box and it showed that we don’t have any shortage when it comes to scoring runs.”
In its record setting game, UMass scored a run in every inning, after dropping the previous game 10-9 in extra innings. The Minutemen scattered 24 hits and led the entire game, as the Owls cut the deficit to two in the first inning. All nine members of the UMass lineup recorded multiple hits and each scored at least once. Throughout the entire series, UMass had 52 base-knocks.
“We were swinging the bats pretty well and everybody got their hits today,” said second-baseman Eric Fredette in a UMassathletics.com interview. “We knew that we were swinging the bats well all weekend, so we knew if the pitchers could just hold them we would come out on top.”
Fredette went 3-for-5 with 4 RBI in the series finale.
Though Fredette put in strong numbers, senior Matt Gedman has also been dynamic from the batters box as he extended his hitting streak to a career-best 15 games on Monday. Gedman is leading the team at the plate with a .447 batting average, 51 hits and 28 runs scored. He is also tied for second on the team in doubles and is second in RBI behind senior Peter Copa.
“I mean we know we can do it, it’s just we’re all starting to [put] it all together,” said catcher Tom Conley in a UMassathletics.com interview. “It was pretty much just Pete and Matt at beginning of the year, so it feels good that a lot of people are starting to get hits.”
With their most recent stumble against UConn the Minutemen looked to get back on track on Tuesday against Central Connecticut State University.
Michael Counos can be reached at [email protected].
