Notebook: Baseball's bullpen beginning to take form

For the first two weeks of its season, the Terrapin baseball team's stellar starting pitching served as its central storyline.

But lost amid the continued excellence on the mound by starters David Carroll and Eric Potter during Saturday's sweep of Canisius was the possible emergence of two dominant relievers.

In those two games, the Terps' (7-4) bullpen combined for four perfect innings as it secured 6-2 and 9-1 victories. It took right-handers Charlie Haslup and Brady Kirkpatrick a mere 43 pitches to dispatch 12 Golden Griffins.

The success comes after early-season troubles for the bullpen, which struggled to back up solid starts in the Terps' season opener at Texas.

"It's progressively gotten better," said coach Erik Bakich, whose Terps face Delaware (3-8) this afternoon. "It really had nowhere else to go but get better. Guys are getting more comfortable; they're getting more comfortable in their own skin with the opportunities they're getting."

Haslup tossed two perfect innings after taking over for Carroll in Saturday's first game, continuing a season that has thus far been perfect. In five innings this year, he has faced the minimum 15 batters — a stark contrast from a freshman season he finished with a 9.64 ERA in seven appearances.

Kirkpatrick relieved Potter in the series finale Saturday and went two perfect innings. Displaying a dominating fastball and change-up along with a good curveball, he struck out five of the six batters he faced.

"It feels really good. I just needed to get back on track. I had a good fall, a real slow start, a terrible outing in Texas, all right outing against Navy," said Kirkpatrick, who didn't record an out while allowing five earned runs against the Longhorns in his season debut. "It just felt really good to get back out there, throwing strikes."

"I think he just had a little chip on his shoulder, too," catcher Jack Cleary said. "He had great stuff all fall, all spring. The start of the season was a little rough for him at Texas, but he's a freshman getting his feet wet. He's going to be a good guy for us this year because he's coming out now with an edge."

The development of the bullpen could help solidify what has so far been an excellent pitching staff. While starters Carroll, Potter and Sander Beck have enjoyed consistent, early success, the bullpen followed its struggles against Texas with rough patches against Army and in its series opener against Canisius on Friday.

"We've always known that we're going to have a good bullpen. We're just waiting for it to show," Kirkpatrick said. "We have the most confidence in the world in our bullpen. Just a slow start."

HOLLAND SHORES UP SECOND

Even as Bakich insists he will continue to experiment with different lineups until the start of ACC play, second baseman Ryan Holland has made a sound case for permanent inclusion in the team's future plans.

"He had quality at-bats all weekend," Bakich said. "He seems just to bring a savvy and some instincts to this game just because it's his fourth year in college. ... He's certainly going to be one of the keys for our offense, there's no question about that."

The Chattahoochee Valley junior-college transfer enters today's game against Delaware hitting a team-high .393, and he has the most runs scored and second-most hits on the team.

Even with his offensive success, Holland was quick to deflect any early praise.

"Some roles are specificed right now, some aren't," Holland said. "Everybody's clicking right now, and it doesn't seem that we're putting out a bad lineup or anything like that. It seems like everybody's clicking, and as long as we're winning it doesn't really matter."

THE END OF SYNERGY?

When the Terps tried to break out into what is slowly becoming their signature "synergy" dance in the late innings of Friday's loss to Canisius, someone wasn't happy about it: the umpires.

As the players started to swing their arms and sway from side to side, as they did in a 13-inning victory against Army last month, an umpire stopped play and made them stop the motion.

"Apparently, we were too close" to the field, Cleary said. "[On Saturday,] I heard something that we were up in the front in the dugout [and] you can only do it in the back. I don't know. Forget them, we're going to keep doing what we do. That's what we do."

While the players were confused as to why they were stopped, especially considering the umpires' tolerance the week before against Army, they sounded ready to make a change to their rally antics.

"Forget the rules," Holland said. "It's something they put in, I guess ... and we hadn't heard about it. So we'll just change it and adapt to the rule. It won't stop us."

schneider@umdbk.com