Terps easily handle Blue Hens, 8-0

Sprawled out in front of home plate on the basepath yesterday, second baseman Ryan Holland stopped a foot short of the base he'd been hoping to steal. Looking up, he saw Delaware catcher Aaron Mascoe tag him, apparently keeping him from his desired destination.

"I don't know what the hell Holland was doing," coach Erik Bakich said afterward. "Holland decided to trip, barrel roll and land on his stomach somehow. I don't know what happened."

After home-plate umpire Darrin Sealey ruled Holland safe despite being tagged out, no one at Bob "Turtle" Smith Stadium did. Mascoe had left his position behind the plate too quickly and blocked the plate, triggering a catcher's balk call by the umpire.

Considering Holland had just hit a three-RBI triple in the previous at-bat, the Terps had what Bakich called a "nail-in-the-coffin play" on the way to an 8-0 victory over Delaware.

"I think our offense was clicking today, people are getting quality hits, quality at-bats," Holland said. "We ran the pitch count up on all the pitchers, we were seeing a lot of pitches every at-bat. When you can do that, it makes your batting average as a team definitely go higher."

Shortstop Alfredo Rodriguez helped start the scoring in the third inning after a walk and subsequent move to third base on an errant pick-off attempt. When first baseman Tomo Delp managed an RBI infield single, the Terps (8-4) were on the board.

Five Terp pitchers combined for an eight-hit shutout of the Blue Hens (3-9), keeping the team up 1-0 until its seventh-inning explosion. Reliever Chuck Ghysels got the start but went only three innings on a staff day that also saw Jimmy Reed, Michael Boyden, Brady Kirkpatrick and Korey Wacker — four non-starting pitchers — trot out to the mound.

"We dominated them on the mound in every aspect, really," Ghysels said. "It was good. Staff day is just basically, we come out, we get our staff throwing our bullpen, we get a couple in-game innings. We just got a little work in."

As Terp pitchers kept the Delaware offense at bay, the team finally found another way onto the scoresheet in the seventh inning, when a Charlie White double, Jordan Hagel bunt single and walks to Rodriguez and Delp loaded the bases for Holland.

"Coach [Bakich] pulled me aside before my at-bat and he said, you know, go up there looking for the first pitch," Holland said. "He's probably going to be right there looking for strike one."

Holland instead waited for his pitch, and slammed Delaware reliever Stephen Richter's 3-1 offering off the right-field wall to blow the game open.

"It definitely feels a lot better," Wacker said of the offense. "It feels good that we have those guys that we can depend on in big situations, guys like Ryan Holland, who come up big pretty much every game. You know he's going to compete in every at-bat."

Back-to-back RBI singles from Rodriguez and Wacker in the eighth made it an 8-0 game, assuring the Terps' eighth win of the season.

"I think we've shown the ability to explode for multiple runs at any time," Bakich said. "Those were three two-out RBIs by Holland. ... It was good to see that explosion. Absolutely put a team away."

The victory concluded a 7-1 homestand for the Terps, who head down to Atlanta this weekend to face No. 24 Georgia Tech in their ACC opening-series.

"It's good, it's good," Ghysels said. "You start building up momentum, you get going, and we'll carry it over into Georgia Tech."

schneider at umdbk dot com