Surprising duo lifts baseball's offense in series vs. No. 7 Florida State

When Erik Bakich predicted earlier this season that the Terrapin baseball team's offense would eventually click, the second-year coach likely envisioned one of the team's top hitters as the catalyst.

The Terps had one of their best offensive showings of the season over the weekend against No. 7 Florida State. But surprisingly, it wasn't largely the doing of second baseman Ryan Holland, who owns the Terps' best batting average, or right fielder Charlie White, the team's leadoff hitter.

Instead, two freshmen who had entered the series batting under .200 provided the spark from near the end of the order.

Third baseman Jake Stinnett and first baseman Tim Kiene, who have struggled for much of the season, went a combined 5-for-14 with five RBI and two runs scored in the final two games of the series. With their No. 8 and 9 batters hitting their stride, the Terps had back-to-back 10-hit games for the first time all season.

"I felt good. I had a simple approach and just executed," Kiene said. "We've been working together just on simplifying everything down and keeping everything simple, and it paid off for us this week. ... It was good just because Jake and I haven't gotten the numbers we want to. Coming through this weekend was very big for us."

Bakich had warned the lineup would vary with an influx of freshmen and junior-college transfers. But even as Kiene struggled after starting the season in the cleanup spot and Stinnett bounced in and out of the starting lineup, Bakich found ways to get them in the lineup.

That the duo broke out this weekend hardly surprised Bakich.

"This is all a process," Bakich said. "They're two guys who've never experienced much failure, and they both played a lot early, and they both had some adversity. They hit a rough patch. Baseball's a game of peaks and valleys; they hit a valley. But what you're seeing is just a result of the hard work that they've been putting in over the last couple weeks."

With Kiene and Stinnett serving as models at the plate, the Terps as a whole looked like a different team on offense. Hitters were more patient, walking more and better selecting pitches. Even in innings in which it didn't score, the team threatened after moving runners into scoring position more often. That hadn't been the case through much of the season for the Terps, who came to rely on solid pitching and one or two offensive outbursts.

Bakich maintained nothing had changed for the Terps physically. The talent had always been there, he said, but their mentality was different.

"Our coach has been working with us a lot just simplifying our swings a lot," Stinnett said. "We've been working hard whenever we can, and it paid off this weekend."

Tonight, the Terps (13-15) will take their new offensive confidence to Morgantown, W.Va., to take on West Virginia (17-13) in their first midweek road game of the year.

Given their success this weekend at the plate and the Mountaineers' struggles on the rubber — the team's pitching staff owns a 5.61 ERA — the pieces for the Terps' offensive resurgence to continue are in place.

"The hitters had a really pretty good offensive weekend, really a coming-out party for a lot of the freshmen," pitcher David Carroll said. "I think that's going to step them forward."

schneider@umdbk.com