Posted on March 26, 2006
The JMU baseball team has been struggling to find itself as a team this year, and their pitching rotation has been particularly problematic.
In Saturday’s game against William & Mary, the Diamond Dukes pulled it together after a shaky start, emerging victorious in a 7-6 nail biter.
Freshman Kyle Hoffman started as pitcher for JMU and got into trouble early, giving up two singles in the first inning that led to two runs. Hoffman recovered quickly with two strikeouts to close out the inning.
William & Mary scored two more in the third inning on consecutive solo home runs.
In the fifth inning, JMU continued its season trend of going to veteran relief when the team replaced Hoffman with senior pitcher Jacob Cook.
“This year, we have probably lost more games late in the game than we have early in the game,” JMU coach Spanky McFarland said. “We’ve kind of changed that around a little bit, [going] with the young guys in the beginning and the older guys later on.”
The Diamond Dukes are without the core of their pitching rotation from last year, a group that included right-handers Ryan Reid and Travis Miller, along with southpaw Greg Nesbitt. Replacing them has not been easy, but McFarland has chosen to start a number of young players to fill the void.
Yesterday’s start was the fifth of the season for Hoffman, in a rotation where only two seniors have started this year. Hoffman has the best record on the pitching staff at 3-1, and avoided recording a loss with some stingy pitching by Cook.
“With a lefty [batter] coming up and a lefty pitcher coming in, Cook did a good job picking me up so it worked out for the best,” Hoffman said about the substitution.
Cook shut down William & Mary right away, in a performance where his only two runs were given up in the eighth and ninth innings, respectively. He established control of the game by pitching strikes early in the count and getting ahead of batters.
“Our philosophy is ‘out or on in three pitches or less’,” Cook said. “The more you get ahead, the better opportunity you have of just getting guys out, because then you can throw your pitch.”
Cook pitched the final 4 and 2/3 innings, allowing two runs on four hits. He also had three strikeouts.
His ability to dictate tempo helped JMU take the lead on the strength of four runs scored in the sixth inning, making the score 6-4 in JMU’s favor at that point.
With plenty of games left to improve on a 7-15 record (3-4, CAA), the Diamond Dukes will continue to look to their veteran pitchers for stability, whether they start on the mound or come in for relief.
JMU failed to get another good starting effort as senior right-hander Bobby Lasko got shelled for seven runs in just 2 and 1/3 innings as JMU fell 12-6 in the series finale.
