After last night’s doubleheader head coach Gregg Ritchie evaluated the bullpen. He looked at every game. He looked at the offense, at the coaching staff’s calls, at the defensive plays, at the errors and at the errors by the pitchers on pickoff throws.
He met with the bullpen before Sunday’s finale with Cal State University Northridge. He had two key messages.
One: “It’s a bullpen by committee right now. No one has a roll.”
Two: No pickoffs. It was a “mandatory no do.”
“I told them there are no closers, there are no middle guys, there’s nothing,” Ritchie said after Sunday’s game. “There’s only guys that want to go out there and pitch and throw strikes.”
Following Sunday’s game, the bullpen has now given up 56 percent of GW’s total runs. The Colonials have now dropped to 3-8 after getting swept by CSUN at the Tuck, losing seven of those games in the seventh inning or later.
The bullpen imploded Sunday, following a lights-out 7.1 innings by senior Jacob Williams, who exited in the eighth with 92 pitches after a hit batsman and sacrifice bunt. He left the game with a 2-1 lead.
What followed was a bullpen that took six different pitchers to record five outs – a bullpen that would give up seven runs.
“I basically challenged them,” Ritchie said, about his bullpen. “They didn’t meet the challenge. I said, ‘Look, it’s all on your shoulders’.”
GW would lose 9-3, despite a comeback in the eighth to tie up the game and a chance to go-ahead if not for a well-executed relay home to nail junior Bobby Campbell at the plate by at least a couple strides.
“Was it aggressive?” Ritchie said. “Yeah, but we need to remain aggressive. And when you don’t have a bullpen that’s given you one inning, you got to try to get that lead right there.”
The first weak point in the bullpen came from junior midweek starter, junior-college transfer Shane Sweeney.
The starter, who threw five shutout innings in both of his starts this year, was brought in for this specific matchup. Williams has a smaller pitch count and inning cap than starters senior Bobby LeWarne and sophomore Robbie Metz, who both threw over 110 pitches Saturday. He reached 92 pitches in the eighth inning with the tying run in scoring position before exiting.
So Ritchie brought in the lefty Sweeney, who could switch CSUN’s leadoff hitter to hit from his weaker side. Junior Fred Smith was 2-3 headed into that at-bat. It was the one situation Ritchie said he would use Sweeney in to get an out, and hopefully spark some momentum in the bullpen.
A chopper down the third baseline went just out of the reach of Sweeney. It set CSUN up with runners on the corners. Sweeney remained in the game. He then broke the mandatory rule.
Sweeney tried to pickoff the speedy Smith at first base. The ball went over Campbell’s head at first and allowed the tying run to score and Smith to advance to third. He then scored on a single from the next batter to give CSUN a one-run lead.
“We have guys like Jake who have given everything they’ve got and put up a great start,” senior catcher Matthieu Robert, who got the start in place of sophomore Brandon Chapman, who caught all 20 innings Saturday and has been slumping, said. “So it’s just important we focus on finishing.”
And no one is throwing the bullpen under the bus, but they realize the team is not living up to it’s motto – “finish” – or potential.
Freshman Jordan Friedman, the other midweek starter, came in for relief for Sweeney, closing out the inning. Junior Brandon Ritchie would face one batter in the ninth, after given the hook following walking the first batter. Senior Luke Olson would be tagged with three runs. Senior Randy Dalrymple would give up a bases-clearing double followed immediately by a two-run home run. Sophomore Chance Malek would be the final pitcher of the afternoon.
Heading into the bottom of the eighth, the Colonials brought some energy, some fight. Junior Andrew Selby doubled to deep right with one out, just getting under the ball to miss a game-tying home run.
Campbell then knocked him in, with Selby dancing around the tag by the catcher, fielding the relay throw up the third baseline. When Selby jockeyed back to the dugout, it seemed GW had regained its momentum, with the team celebrating his tying run.
Metz then kept the line moving with a rocketing double down the left field line. Campbell was waived home to try to score from first. He was called out at home, without any need for debate, though sending him was up for debate. Had he stayed put at third, the Colonials would have had runners on second and third for junior Eli Kashi and then the top of the lineup.
But as Ritchie said, when the bullpen isn’t holding a lead, you have to take a lead whenever you can when it’s late in the game.
“We didn’t pull it out, but I think we’re a better team than they are,” Selby said. “They’re a good team, and so are we, so we’ll be alright.”
The Colonials resume play against another top-tiered team, at Maryland Wednesday, at 4 p.m.
