Maryland Baseball At Duke For Three Weekend Games

April 14, 2005

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TERP BASEBALL TO PLAY THREE-GAME SET AT DUKE THIS WEEKEND

Maryland baseball will look to pick up some momentum from its walk-off win over Mount St. Mary's on Wednesday when it takes on Duke this weekend. The Terps and Blue Devils will play a three-game Atlantic Coast Conference series, beginning on Friday at 3 p.m. Fans, note that Friday's series opener has been pushed from a 7 p.m. start to a 3 p.m. first pitch.

Audio broadcasts for each game will be available on www.wmucsports.com, and live stats will be available by logging on to the www.umterps.com baseball site.

Information can now be submitted to join an online newsletter mailing list. Titled "The Maryland Baseball Bulletin", the newsletter is sent to you each time new information is posted to the Maryland website. This includes weekend previews, game recaps, feature stories and more.

PREVIEWING THE BLUE DEVILS

2005 Record: 9-26 (1-14 Atlantic Coast Conference).
2004 Record: 25-31 (8-16 ACC).
All-Time Series:73-64-1.
Last Meeting: Maryland 3, Duke 1 - March 28, 2004.

Duke enters the weekend with a 9-26 overall record and a 1-14 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference play. The Blue Devils have lost seven straight games, with their last win being an 8-7 upset victory over nationally ranked Florida State. Duke is coming off back-to-back road series against Clemson and Wake Forest after a nine-game homestand.

Adam Murray leads a group of five Duke hitters with at least a .380 average, leading the team with a .348 average, 29 runs scored and 10 doubles. Corey Whiting has two doubles, two triples and two home runs in 77 at-bats for a team-high .462 slugging percentage, and Eric Baumann has a team-high three home runs. As a team, Duke is hitting .272 with 78 extra-base hits, 137 walks and 267 strikeouts in 35 games.

Duke pitchers have combined for a 6.67 ERA and have an opponent batting average of .312. 14 of the Blue Devils' 15 pitchers have ERAs above 5.00, with Ryan Sember leading the staff with a 4.20 ERA. Greg Burke and Danny Otero, respective Friday and Saturday starters, have combined to start 24 of the team's 35 games this season, and Tony Bajoczky has made a team-high 17 appearances out of the bullpen.

CURRENT STATS AND TRENDS

Pitching
Chris Bowen hasn't allowed an earned run in 11.0 innings at home this season and has given up just four hits in 33 at-bats at Shipley Field (.121 average) ... last Friday against North Carolina, senior Chris Clem became the 10th Terrapin pitcher in school history to record 200 career strikeouts ... Justin Hulse tied a career-high with 4.0 innings pitched against North Carolina on Sunday ... in his last 13.2 innings, Hulse has walked just one batter ... junior Michael Meagher seems to have emerged as the team's closer, having recorded two saves and a third in the team's exhibition win over the Bowie Baysox ... he hasn't allowed a hit in 4.1 innings and has an 8:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio ... Ryan Moorer put together the best outing of his career against the Bowie Baysox last Tuesday ... although the numbers didn't count towards his season stats, he picked up a win by allowing four hits and no earned runs over 5.0 strong innings ... Ben Pfinsgraff is on a run of four straight quality starts (6.0+ innings, three or fewer earned runs) and leads the team with six on the season ... six of his nine starts have been decided by two runs or less, and he has walked more than one batter in just one of his starts ... Mike Sufczynski has gotten two straight no-decisions, but has won all three of his decisions this season ... Brad Taylor has a 15:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio ... Brett Tidball threw the Saturday portion of a suspended game at Georgia Tech last week (4/1-4/2) and didn't allow a hit in 4.0 scoreless innings ... he struck out three and retired the last 12 batters he faced.

Offense
Chad Durakis has been hit by five pitches in his last 10 games ... Durakis leads the team with 58% success rate advancing runners ... Will Frazier has nine doubles in his last 11 games and has scored 18 runs in his last 16 games ... Frazier has struck out just once in his last 31 plate appearances ... Nick Jowers missed the North Carolina series after getting stitches in his shin, but has hits in five of his last six games ... Matt Maropis has five doubles, five RBI and three stolen bases in his last six games ... over those games, Maropis has seen time at first base, third base and right field ... Truan Mehl has 12 RBI in his last 15 games and has hits in 28 of the team's 35 games this season ... Dan Melvin leads the team with six sacrifice bunts ... freshman Joe Palumbo is tied for second on the team with 13 walks and has struck out just five times ... last week against UMBC, he replaced an injured Nick Jowers in right field ... it was the third position he's played this season ... all eight of Bobby Ryan's hits this season have come in multi-hit games (four games with two hits) ... Ryan walked three times in the North Carolina series and now has eight walks in his last 10 games... Elliot Singletary is currently second in the ACC in doubles, averaging 0.45 per game ... with all that time spent in scoring position, Singletary has come around to score 10 times in his last 14 games and 21 times on the year ... Jordan Wilson has driven in runs in 11 games this season, with Maryland going 8-3 in those games ... Wilson tied a career-high with three runs in consecutive games last week (3/30 vs. Temple, 4/1 at Georgia Tech).

THE ACE OF EXTRA BASE

With a recent hot streak over which senior Will Frazier has hits in 15 of 16 games, he has put his name on eight of the school's career record lists. Most recently, he broke the program's extra-base hit record and now sits at 84 and counting for his career.

Tied with Paul Schager with 81 extra-base hits in his career, Frazier connected on a 91 mph offering from North Carolina All-American Daniel Bard and sent it over the left-center field wall. With the blast, Frazier moved to the top of the school's extra-base hits list, extended a hitting streak to a team season-high 14 games and became the fifth Terrapin in school history to hit 30 career home runs.

A MEMORABLE WEEK FOR MARYLAND BASEBALL

Last week featured some memorable moments for the Maryland baseball program. The Terps took down the top-ranked team in the nation on Saturday, April 2, and Ben Pfinsgraff, the winning pitcher in that game, was named ACC Pitcher of the Week for his effort. In an exhibition game against the Bowie Baysox on Tuesday, April 5, freshman Ryan Moorer pitched the Terps to a 2-1 win over the Orioles' double-A affiliate. The Terrapin defense played some of its tightest defense of the season behind Moorer, including Matt Maropis who started at third base for the first time.

Former Terrapin pitcher Steve Schmoll also made a splash this week, making an improbable run at a spot on the Los Angeles Dodgers' 25-man active roster. Schmoll didn't even start spring training in the Dodgers' big league camp, but impressed Dodgers management with 4.0 shutout innings at the end of the spring.

On April 6th, Schmoll made his major league debut in a 10-4 Dodgers win. Schmoll retired all three of the batters he faced in the game and was dubbed by ESPN's Chris Berman as Steve "It's a Schmoll World After All". Later in the week (April 8th), despite giving up three runs in 1.0 inning, Schmoll picked up his first career win after the Dodgers rallied to beat the Diamondbacks. The next day, he got the final two outs of a 12-10 Dodgers win over Arizona to secure his first career save.

On the same day as Schmoll's debut, Eric Milton made his first start of the season and 200th of his career. He was the winning pitcher in a 9-5 Cincinnati Reds win over the New York Mets. He went 5.1 innings and gave up three earned runs for his first win in a Reds uniform.

PFINSGRAFF NAMED ACC PITCHER OF THE WEEK

Junior right-hander Ben Pfinsgraff was named the Atlantic Coast Conference's Co-Pitcher of the Week earlier this week after leading the Terps to a win over then-No. 1 Georgia Tech on Saturday, April 2nd. Pfinsgraff threw a season-high 131 pitches and held the conference's top offense to just five hits and one run in 7.2 gutsy innings.

Making Pfinsgraff's start more amazing is that he walked more batters in the game (six) than he had in his previous seven starts combined (five) and the Yellow Jackets scored a combined 18.5 runs in the other two games of the series. He prevented Tech, an offense that picks up steam and puts up big numbers quickly, from coming through with a big hit in one of the biggest wins in program history.

MEHL PACING THE TERP OFFENSE

Though he had a team-best 13-game hit streak snapped in the first game of the Georgia Tech series (4/1), senior outfielder Truan Mehl responded in a big way in the remaining two games of the series. In the team's big win on April 2nd, Mehl drove in both of Maryland's runs, had three hits in three at-bats and walked once. In the Sunday series finale, he came through with four hits in five at-bats, including his first home run of the season - a solo shot in the fourth inning.

Last Wednesday against UMBC, he had two hits, an HBP, an RBI and a run scored, moving his three-game hit total to nine. He has driven in at least one run in six of his last nine games and has a total of 11 RBI in his last 14 games.

Mehl now leads the Terp offense in most offensive categories, including: batting average (.336), hits (48), RBI (21) and on-base percentage (.398). He has been a consistent force at the top of the lineup all season, having hits in 28 of the team's 35 games this season.

FINDING MAROPIS TIME

Head coach Terry Rupp is finding ways to get junior Matt Maropis at-bats. He started the year at second base, but had some early defensive issues and starting finding time as a designated hitter. Maropis has been getting work at first base in the past week and played some innings there in the final game of the Georgia Tech series. In the team's exhibition game against the Bowie Baysox, he started and played all seven innings at third base, then started at third base against UMBC on Wednesday.

In the last four games, Maropis has started in the place of injured Nick Jowers in right field. One of the team's better athletes, he has adjusted well to yet another new position and continues to hit. In his last six games, Maropis is 8-for-22 with five doubles, five RBI and three runs scored. And defensively, he looks comfortable at both third and right field, with that versatility providing more lineup options and ways to get Maropis' bat going.

In 2004, Maropis broke out with a .353 batting average, 13 stolen bases and a .498 slugging percentage, but got out of the gates slowly in 2005. But with five doubles, five runs and two stolen bases in his last five games, he seems to be finding his stroke quickly. The addition of his hot bat to the Maryland lineup could give the Terps an added push heading down the stretch.

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