The baseball team lost its lead early and could never come back.
The Lobos lost to Stephen F. Austin on Wednesday, 9-5, after giving up four runs in the first inning.
Head coach Ray Birmingham said pitching needs to improve, because the Lobos usually can’t come back from such deficits.
“We need way better starting pitching, because you can’t ask your team to come back from four or five to nothing all the time. It’s impossible,” Birmingham said.
After losing 8-7 to SFA on Tuesday, junior pitcher Selby Brummett started his second game of the year and went through the entire Lumberjack lineup in the first inning, giving up four runs on seven hits.
The Lobos (10-13) were able to score in the bottom of the second inning, albeit only an RBI single from freshman catcher Alex Real, to make the score 4-1.
After SFA (11-14) pushed the lead to four in the fourth inning, UNM came within a run in the bottom of the fourth due to a two-out rally which started with an error from SFA that put freshman outfielder Ryan Padilla on first.
Junior centerfielder Mitchell Garver then doubled, to put Padilla on third. Real, the next batter, was hit by SFA starting pitcher Chase Greening to load the bases.
Sophomore infielder Ryan Pustay brought home two Lobos with a single. Real also scored when SFA third basemen Bryce Cummings threw to third with no one covering the bag, allowing Real an easy path to home plate.
However, the Lumberjacks would answer back in the fifth with a three run inning of their own, to put the game out of reach for the Lobos.
The Lobos, down 9-4, scored only one more run in the eighth inning off a Josh Melendez homer over the left field wall, his second of the season.
Padilla said that the team didn’t play to its potential, and it showed in this series against the Lumberjacks.
“As a team, we didn’t play our best, definitely coming off a big win last weekend,” Padilla said. “We’re just looking to get better and we’re going to learn from our mistakes.”
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UNM used five pitchers that day, and sophomore pitcher Jake McCasland outperformed the other four. He threw for three innings, allowing one run on two hits.
McCasland said that he was trying to keep the Lobos in the game and that the team didn’t come out like it did during two victories against No. 19 Texas Christian University last weekend.
“I would say it was our mindset for me against TCU,” McCasland said, “I just felt we were going to win the way were we playing. We were having a good time and we were kind of flat these games.”
Birmingham said this series was about finding more pitching depth for his team.
“These two times (games against SFA) were about finding some more pitching,” Birmingham said. “We ran some guys out there and we got smoked.”
