A rough second inning from Keith Rogalla and a lack of offense ending up costing the Bluejays on Sunday in a 2-1 loss at TD Ameritrade against Winthrop.
After taking the first game of the series against the Eagles (15-13), Creighton (8-14) dropped the next two games and only scored one run.
“We pitched pretty good, and we defended pretty well,” said Creighton coach Ed Servais. “I knew there would be days where we would be challenged a little bit offensively, but coming off of Friday I thought we had turned a corner a little bit with our bats. The last two days I’m not sure what that was, swinging at a lot of pitches that were in the dirt and probably too much thinking between the ears from our guys. It was a waste of some great pitching opportunities today.”
The pitching was indeed strong aside from a small hiccup in the second inning, when Rogalla walked four batters in the inning, eventually allowing Hunter Lipscomb to score the first run of the game. This was followed by a wild pitch by Rogalla, on which Matthew Mulkey scored on to make the game 2-0.
“Not happy with the day,” said Rogalla. “Obviously got a little out of control there in the second inning. We got to probably look at the video and see if there were something mechanical, got out of my rhythm and couldn’t throw it in there as well as I wanted to.”
After that, Rogalla settled in and went on to pitch 3 2/3 innings without giving up a run. The combination of Jackson Vescelus, Grant Spranger, Ethan DeCaster and David Gerber finished the game on the mound and only allowed one baserunner the rest of the game.
Creighton was finally able to score in the sixth inning behind a double from Michael Emodi, followed by sacrifice flies from Riley Landuyt and Bryce Only. After the sixth, the Bluejays’ next nine batters were retired in order.
“We were kind of fighting the game a little bit today, we didn’t let it come to us,” said Creighton catcher Emodi. “We were trying to get the job done without getting the pitch to get the job done. That just goes along with being aggressive but also being smart and leaving those balls down and getting a pitch up you can hit.”
The Bluejays had good chances to put more runs on the board in the third and fifth innings but each time left two men on base to end the inning. In total Creighton left eight men on base and could only muster up eight hits for the game. Isaac Collins led the offense with three hits and Emodi added two hits.
One-run games had been an weakness for the Bluejays earlier in the season, as they started the year 0-6 in those games but had won four straight before the loss on Sunday.