The Seton Hall baseball team (7-9) could not handle the hot bats of the Missouri State Bears as it was defeated 14-2 Saturday afternoon. The bright spot in the ballgame for the Pirates was Ryan Ramiz, as he had a three-hit game and drove in a run in the loss. Ramiz is in the midst of a hot streak, as he is hitting .476 in his last six games coming after a slow start to the season that saw him hit .121 in the team’s first 1o games.
Redshirt junior Andrew Politi started the game for the Pirates and was in for a long game once Bears shortstop Jeremy Eierman took him deep to put Missouri State up by one early. Politi then ran into trouble in the third inning as he surrendered a leadoff walk and a single. He was removed from the game in favor of sophomore reliever Blake Espinal, who struggled with his command as he hit the next batter and walked the following batter on four pitches. After striking out the next batter, he surrendered his second bases-loaded walk of the inning.
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Photo via SHU Athletics[/caption]
Freshman Ryan McLinskey came on to get Seton Hall out of the jam and did just that by getting the next two batters out on a foul out and strikeout. Politi’s day was statistically done after the inning as he only lasted just two, giving up two hits and three runs, striking out two and walking four.
McLinskey remained in the game and ran into trouble in the next as he surrendered a bunt single to lead off the inning and then walked the next two batter, loading the bases. The Pirates almost escaped the jam as they got two outs with the bases loaded on a pop fly and a strikeout, but were then stung by a bases-clearing double off the bat of Bears right-fielder Jack Duffy, putting Missouri State up 6-0 in the fourth.
The Pirates scored their first run in the sixth inning as Mike Alescio came around to score on an RBI single from Christian Del Castillo. The Bears answered immediately in the next half inning with four runs of their own, with the runs coming on a sacrifice fly, another bases-loaded walk and a two-run single. They tacked on another run in the seventh on an RBI single off the bat of Drew Millas.
The Pirates scored their second run of the ballgame on a Ramiz RBI single in the eighth inning. The Bears responded in the next half inning with three runs, two coming on a Sam Faith two-run home run. The last run of the game was scored on a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch.
Missouri State starting pitcher Ty Buckner earned the win with six strong innings of one-run ball. He gave up five hits, two walks and struck out four in the win and improves to 1-2 on the season. Politi was charged with the loss and is now 0-4 on the season.
The Pirates will wrap their weekend up with an afternoon game on March 18 against the Oklahoma State Cowboys. The game will be a rematch of March 16's contest, when Pirates took down the Cowboys with a 10-7 victory.
Jose Feliciano can be reached at jose.feliciano@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @JFeliciano1101.
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