The Massachusetts baseball team fell in all three games to the Saint Louis Billikens on the road in its weekend series. The Minutemen (13-29-1, 6-18 Atlantic 10) came into the series in desperate need of wins, but they couldn’t find one as their chance at a conference tournament spot decreased.
The typical winning formula for UMass this campaign has been its starting pitchers. Callen Powers and Robbie O’Connor have been consistent all season long. Four out of six Minutemen conference victories have stemmed from Powers and O’Connor. Against St. Louis (28-19, 16-8 A-10), though, the starters had trouble on the mound.
O’Connor, the usual first-game starter, stepped on the bump for game one. He worked his pitches in well early, combining the fastball with his brand-new cutter. Going into the fourth inning, he hadn’t let up an earned run.
The Billikens found a way, though, opening up the inning with a Max McGwire triple to right-center field. St. Louis followed that up with two walks and two doubles, forcing O’Connor out of the contest. He finished with a final line of three and a third innings pitched, five earned runs, five hits and two strikeouts.
Bobby McDonough came in to replace O’Connor, allowing one more run before delivering two quick outs to escape the jam. Heading into the fifth, the lead was up to seven for the Billikens. The Minutemen responded with a run, coming from an Anthony Tirado one-run single. He finished as one of two UMass players to find base twice in the game, along with Carter Hanson.
Trouble continued for the Minutemen bullpen as they let up 11 more runs, sealing the deal for St. Louis with a final score of 18-1.
Rain sweeping through the Midwest on Saturday pushed the second game to a Sunday doubleheader. The early game saw Powers on the mound for UMass. Like O’Connor, Powers was dealing early, until he ran into a problem he has dealt with for the majority of the year: the home run ball. In the second inning, Chase Beattie launched a two-run home run to fire the Billikens into an early lead.
In the top of the third, Tirado responded for the Minutemen with another RBI single, scoring a run to cut the deficit in half. The redshirt freshman started the season off strong but struggled in the early parts of April. A couple of days into May, Tirado has picked up from where he left off in March, supplying RBI knocks in two consecutive games. He finished the series with a hit in all three games.
Powers continued into the third inning with four strikeouts, but his performance then began to dip with St. Louis’ bats starting to roll. The Billikens began the inning with three singles, followed by a three-run home run, courtesy of Brenden Stressler, pushing the lead up to five.
The home run issues continued for Powers with McGwire hitting another long ball to go back-to-back for St. Louis.
The Haddam Neck, CT native pitched a clean fourth inning, but then exited the game, finishing with seven earned runs, eight hits and seven strikeouts. The Minutemen went on to lose 18-3, with the bullpen letting up 11 runs the rest of the way.
Sam Belliveau started on the bump for the final game of the weekend. He was the star of last weekend’s rout of George Washington, where he pitched a complete game, allowing three runs while throwing 92 pitches. In a season without Andrew Middleton and Justin Masteralexis, head coach Matt Reynolds looked to Belliveau to be the third guy in the rotation, and he was beginning to succeed in that role.
Like O’Connor and Powers, Belliveau started strong, allowing one run through two innings of work. Once again though for UMass, the third inning was its kryptonite. Belliveau allowed five runs in the frame, with three coming from a Kamaehu Sanchez three-run home run. After giving up two more in the fifth, Reynolds pulled him for the day.
The Minutemen bats couldn’t respond to St. Louis’ momentum, scoring zero runs with five hits in the contest. UMass fell 10-0, completing the sweep for the Billikens.
With just seven games left, the Minutemen will look to respond on Tuesday, May 6, on the road against UMass Lowell. The game begins at 6 p.m. and can be streamed on ESPN+.
Zeke Altman can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @EzekielAltman.
