Terps flame out against Liberty, 11-4

Erik Bakich sat in his office with his head hanging dejectedly last night, perplexed at what he had just seen. After a 11-4 loss to Liberty, all the optimism that had been in the Terrapin baseball coach's voice just weeks before was gone.

"The grace period's over. The honeymoon's over," Bakich said. "We're a quarter of a way through the season. They know the expectation. They know what it takes. The type of play today is unacceptable. There is no ‘learn from this.' This is unacceptable."

The Terps (8-8) started their 2011 campaign 8-4 and full of promise, but yesterday's loss stretched their losing streak to four games. Even after grabbing an early 3-0 lead, an inability to get clutch hits and also stop them — eight of the 11 Flame runs came with two outs — doomed the Terps in defeat against their Big South foes.

"I thought we played pretty bad," Bakich said. "Pretty much everything. Didn't hit. They had a lot of two-out RBIs, we didn't get anything going offensively. We played terribly."

Bakich made the most drastic changes to the lineup the Terps had seen all year, dropping normal No. 1 and No. 2 hitters shortstop Alfredo Rodriguez and center fielder Korey Wacker to near the bottom of the lineup in hopes of sparking what was a listless offense against No. 22 Georgia Tech last weekend.

But the shakeup mattered little.

The Terps had only five hits last night, with no single player having more than one. And while Bakich has long said the offense would improve with time, he sounded less confident after the weak offensive showing.

"Our offense is a work in progress," Bakich said. "We're just not very consistent. We show flashes of being good with big innings. There's a lot, a lot, a lot of 1-2-3 innings in this offense right now. There's a lot of easy innings for the opposition. If we're going to do what we want to do, we've got to be much more competitive offensively then what we are."

Even the Terps' big first inning was marred by inefficiency. Flame starting pitcher Jacob Kemmerer walked all three batters he faced in the frame before getting the hook, and the Terps jumped on the opportunity with a three-run outburst. An RBI single from left fielder Brandon Padula quickly got the Terps on the board, and while sacrifice flies from designated hitter Tim Kiene and third baseman Jake Stinnett plated two more runs, they effectively killed what could have been an even more explosive offensive inning.

"We had a great start. I thought we were really going to get going. We had people on base; we had bases loaded with no outs; we were threatening," Rodriguez said. "We only come out with three runs there. I think we should have just built on that."

But the Flames (9-8) battled back in the top of the third to take the lead. The Terps' pitching had not allowed a home run all season at Bob "Turtle" Smith Stadium until starter Michael Boyden allowed two in the inning. A two-RBI double by Casey Rasmus — brother of St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Colby — made it 4-3, and the Terps would never recover.

"I would say panic is the right way to describe it," Rodriguez said. "We should have just stayed within ourselves and not tried to do too much. When we had guys, we saw in the early innings that we were patient, we got on base. I think when we were down we sort of panicked and started being too aggressive and swinging at pitches that we shouldn't have when we needed people on base."

Coming off a sweep at Georgia Tech over the weekend in their ACC opener, the Terps had hoped to bounce back against Liberty. And while they have a shot at redemption this afternoon, yesterday's loss especially stings — not just because they lost, but because of how they did so.

"You've got to be able to take a punch, and we didn't take a punch. We just kept getting hit and didn't have any answer for the other team," Bakich said. "Baseball's like boxing. Got nine innings, trading punches, you've got to be able to take a punch. Got to be able to get up off the mat. We didn't do that. We laid down."

schneider at umdbk dot com