The Tigers (17-7-1, 6-4 SCAC) stumbled through the weekend when facing Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference rival Birmingham-Southern College (22-8, 13-3) in two doubleheaders. On Saturday, Birmingham-Southern swept the Tigers with scores of 9-1 and 10-5, then split the second doubleheader on Sunday, 2-4 and 11-9.
The losses highlight the team's recent struggle with getting consistent quality starts from starting pitcher Emily Bichler. Since shutting down the offenses of Trine University and Hope College a week ago, the sophomore has fallen into a slump on the mound and has gone 1-5 for the Tigers in the past six games.
Coach Bonnie Skrenta believes the losses are not just the fault of her young pitcher, but a part of a general trend of opposing batters being more comfortable at the plate in the middle of the season, compared to the beginning of the season.
"Usually in March, pitchers dominate batters," Skrenta said. "I think Emily and [freshman pitcher] Megan [Landahl] were able to do that, and we were able to put up a lot of runs on offense. In April, batters have figured out how to hit and work situations. You throw in a couple of walks and wild pitches and you have those big innings."
On the weekend, Bichler compiled 11 walks and had four wild pitches. In the second game on Sunday, Bichler got though just one inning until Skrenta benched her in the second inning in favor of back-up, Landahl. Bichler gave up six runs in the first inning and started the second inning by walking her third batter of the game.
"I definitely think that Emily started questioning her ability and she has no reason to do that," Skrenta said. "Her training has been sound, her knowledge is sound, but this is her first year on the mound."
Landahl fared much better on the mound, giving up just three runs and walking just two batters in her six innings of play.
Down 11-1 in the fifth inning of that game, with the threat of the game ending in a run-rule, the Tiger offense woke up with a three-run homerun by junior Haley Buchanan. In the final seventh inning, the offense erupted for five runs on a two-run double by senior Emma Minx, a two-run homerun by Buchanan and a solo homerun by junior Holly Paris. But the rally fell short by two runs as the ten run deficit was too much to overcome.
In order for the Tigers to get their regular season back on track, Bichler and sophomore catcher Amy Hallett need to find their rhythm to keep hitters off balance.
"Against Anderson [University] and Birmingham-Southern you've really seen that it sometimes doesn't even take going through the lineup once for people to pick up on you," Hallett said. "It's really big on my part as a catcher to realize as soon as they pick up on pitches to change my game plan — a lot of mixing it up to keep the batters off balance."
If the hitters are off balance and Bichler is throwing strikes over the plate, the Tiger's elite defense will be challenged to turn the balls into outs. Prior to the five-run seventh inning in the second game on Sunday, DePauw's defense turned in a rare triple play started by second baseman Minx.
"Sometimes I lose track of what the batters have done previously or sometimes I don't pay attention to the swings as much as I should have," Hallett said. "I talk to any of the fielders or girls on the bench. I talk to coach and Emily a lot. That's something we all need to work on: constant communication about batters."
Today, the Tigers will travel to Illinois Wesleyan University (15-5) in Bloomington, Ill., for a doubleheader. The team will look to bounce back from their current skid and tie together a good performance on the offensive side with a productive outing from Bichler.