The Massachusetts baseball team lost its fourth straight game on Wednesday afternoon, falling by a score of 7-3 to UConn. The Minutemen (3-9) hung around in this one but were ultimately outclassed by a powerful Husky (13-5) offense.
After going down 5-0 early, UMass had some work to do to get itself back into the game. A couple of timely hits from first baseman Steve Luttazi and shortstop Zack Zaetta drew the Minutemen to within three in the middle innings.
Despite some strong work out of the bullpen by UMass’s final three relievers, the offensive push proved to be too little too late, as the bats went quiet for the final three innings.
UMass starter Jackson Harrigan only went one inning in the losing effort, giving up one run on one hit as well as a walk and two hit batters. The first reliever, Scott LeSieur, came in and threw a solid two innings, but faced some trouble once the fourth came around.
LeSieur only managed to get the first out of the inning before he was replaced. He allowed four earned runs in his 2.1 innings of work.
The final three relievers Sam Belliveau, Renn Lints and Charlie Devin stopped the bleeding, as they combined to give up just two runs over the final five innings.
Despite allowing seven runs on the day, the Minutemen stranded 12 runners on base, a convincing stat especially against a high-powered offense like UConn.
“We talk about minimizing damage all the time, just because they have a run or two and a couple of runners on base, you just work your butt off to keep it at that,” head coach Matt Reynolds said. “We did a pretty good job of that, not letting one and two turn into three and four and five and six. So that’s important to manage those, don’t let a one or two run inning turn into a big number. We’ve done a good job of that and hopefully we can hang on to that.”
The offense came out slow in the first few weeks of the season, but graduate student Steve Luttazi has been a bright spot with the bat for the Minutemen, continuing his offensive prowess with a three-hit day against the Huskies.
“He’s been the difference in a couple of game for us offensively,” Reynolds said. “Hopefully we can keep him hot and get some other guys in the middle of the order going.”
Luttazi now has a batting average of .448 through his first 12 games of the season. He also has one home run and six RBI.
UMass will look to end its four-game skid against Wichita State this weekend with a three-game series in Kansas. First pitch of game one will be at 1 p.m. Friday.
“I think we’re still going through some early growing pains here with some new personnel,” Reynolds said. “The sooner we get it worked out, the better. We’ve continued to pitch well. We’re making most of the routine plays. Just got to keep getting better each day.”
Matt Skillings can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @matt_skillings.
