Despite DePauw opening the scoring in both games, the Tiger lineup couldn’t come up with the big hits in the team’s 2-3 and 1-2 losses to Denison on Sunday.
“If two or three things would’ve happened differently, we could easily [have been] riding back with two wins, but that’s baseball,” said junior pitcher Riley Futterknecht.
The Tigers (11-11, 2-4) took the lead in game one on an RBI double from junior third baseman Tate Stewart, which scored junior centerfielder Jack Thompson.
DePauw’s lead quickly disappeared in the bottom half of the inning, as a one-out single and sacrifice fly put the Big Red up 2-1.
That lead would hold until sophomore Lucas Italiano’s RBI single pulled DePauw even with Denison.
But the Big Red once again had an answer for the Tigers. They scored on a wild pitch to take a 3-2 lead, which would prove to be the final.
Starting pitcher Wyatt Spector took the loss, surrendering three runs on five hits through six innings. The senior now has three losses on the season despite carrying a 2.14 ERA through Sunday's game.
The Tigers wasted another gem by game two’s starter Futterknect, who suffered his first loss of the season. The junior right-hander gave up only two runs--one earned--on five hits through eight innings.
“I thought I did well getting ahead early in counts with my fastball and that helped make my changeup more effective,” Futterknect said. “Any outing that you keep your team in the game and give them a chance to win is a good outing, in my opinion.”
Unfortunately for the Tigers, Dension’s Perley Provost did the same thing, limiting the Tigers to one run over seven innings. The sophomore hasn’t given up an earned run in 20 innings of work this season.
“I thought Perley did a great job of keeping us off-balance today at the plate,” said Futterknect, who played against Perley in summer ball growing up. “We got some good hits off him, but he always managed to work around them and keep us from scoring.”
With the offense scoring only three runs over the last two games, junior infielder Ryan Grippo pinpointed the lineup’s main struggle.
“We played alright, but we are not getting timely hitting,” Grippo said. “We owe a lot to Wyatt and Riley for keeping us in games, and need to start getting them consistent wins.”
But Spector was quick to defend the Tiger lineup.
“The offense [was] going up against their number one, which you have to consider,” he said. “You have to almost be perfect [on the mound.] You have to make less mistakes than the other team. Each run absolutely matters in the game.”
Out of the three runs Wittenberg and DePauw scored in game two, only one was earned, as the teams’ defenses combined for five errors on the field.
The Tigers will return to Dension this afternoon with a chance to split the series, as the Big Red will be hosting DePauw in another doubleheader.
Despite the setback, the Tigers are no strangers to adversity. The team easily swept Wittenberg in the second double header after dropping the first two games in last week’s four-game series.
“We’ve already forgotten about the past two games,” Spector said. “There’s really no choice. We have to win both games [today.] We just have to come in with the same approach as we did [on Sunday.] …We just need to do better.”
First pitch of game one will come at 2:00 p.m. from Big Red Field.