Virginia Tech baseball has had bad losses at English Field before, but they’re usually followed by on-field team meetings, just like any other game.
Not after Tuesday’s 13-4 loss to Marshall, though. Hokies head coach John Szefc gathered his team and ushered it into the James C. Weaver Baseball Center, where he couldn’t be heard.
“What I had to say, I couldn’t say in the dugout,” Szefc said. “We had to do some things behind closed doors.”
Szefc was embarrassed — understandably so after his squad surrendered a season-high 18 hits to the Thundering Herd (5-6) and was trounced by true freshman reliever Landen Doll in his third career appearance.
It was just the third time since 2005 that Tech (7-5) lost to Marshall across 14 matchups. Friday’s nine-run deficit tied the highest one in any of those games — a 12-4 Hokies loss on April 23, 2005.
“That’s about as big of an embarrassment as we’re going to have on a baseball field since I’ve been here,” Szefc said. “I’ll take the blame for that. I mean, our guys were clearly not prepared to play at all. … We’re just not very good right now.”
Doll picked up eight strikeouts, allowed four hits and walked a single batter across the last six innings of the game. Sam Gates and Hudson Lutterman combined for a pair of singles to bring the former around in the sixth, but Doll saw four or fewer batters in every other frame he pitched.
“That guy was tough,” Szefc said of Doll. “He stopped us in our tracks. Give him a lot of credit. He pitched through his numbers, and there was nothing to be had off him.”
Doll far outshined any of the Hokies’ pitchers, many of which — Preston Crowl, Luke Craytor, Chase Swift, Peyton Smith — are key weekend arms. They couldn’t get any better a grip on Marshall’s offense than starter Ben Weber, who allowed just one run through 3 ⅓ innings before surrendering four hits in five batters to open the floodgates for the Thundering Herd.
It was Crowl (two hits, ER in ⅓ IP) who replaced Weber, inheriting one out and runners on the corners with Tech ahead 4-3. Center fielder Evan Bottone found Marshall’s fourth straight hit — an RBI single — before right fielder Jackson Halter’s two-run double two at-bats later. Craytor replaced Crowl and kept the Thundering Herd from finding their seventh hit of the inning.
“We didn’t play very good defense behind them, and the [pitchers] couldn’t finish hitters,” Szefc said of Marshall’s six-hit fourth frame. “It was kind of a combination of pitches [our pitchers] weren’t making and us not being able to defend properly behind them.”
Craytor needed just 12 pitches to exit the fifth, though his first pitch of the inning was mashed 396 feet by designated hitter Ethan Murdoch to put Marshall ahead 7-4.
The Thundering Herd added two runs in the sixth, with Bottone, Tyler Kamerer and Cooper Hinson singling off Swift, even though he struck out three batters that frame. It wasn’t until the seventh inning that the Hokies completely fell apart.
Smith struck out his first batter before yielding a double to catcher Will Gubba and hitting Bottone. Both runners moved into scoring position with a wild pitch. Then, shortstop Pete Daniel missed a simple backhand play on a Kamerer grounder, allowing the ball to slowly roll into the outfield and give both runners time to score. Kamerer stole second, first baseman AJ Havrilla took a full-count walk and Hinson doubled them home, making it 13-5.
Tech pitchers Danny Lazaro, Jake Wise and Jacob Exum kept Marshall from scoring again, but the Hokies didn’t score again either. All of their offensive production came in the first three innings.
Sam Grube (2-for-3) and Daniel (2-for-4) singled to start the game, and Grube scored on a wild pitch by Alex Caudill, Marshall’s starter. Tech put up a three-spot in the third inning when Grube and Daniel combined for a single and double, respectively, to bring Grube around. Nick Locurto battled back from an 0-2 count to walk soon after, and with Daniel on third, Tech scored its fourth and final run on a double steal.
Later in the third inning, catcher Henry Cooke struck out with two runners in scoring position. He did the same in the first, and struck out for a third time in the fifth. The senior, who was expected to be one of Tech’s chief offensive producers this year, is down to an .057 batting average with a 49 percent strikeout rate. Szefc said that catcher Anderson French would’ve started in Cooke’s stead had the sophomore not injured his ankle in batting practice.
Tech again struggled with runners in scoring position on Tuesday, hitting 2-for-10, a mark not far below its season average. (.217). It also had poor runners on base (4-for-21) and two-out hitting (0-for-9) rates. Starters Locurto, Treyson Hughes, Cooke and Owen Petrich were all hitless, though Locurto drew three walks.
“It’s concerning, yeah, because we’re not very good,” Szefc said of his offense. “‘Concerning’ is the right word. It’s a concerning thing because we have not been able to be productive at all. So there you go.”
The Hokies’ loss to Marshall comes at a difficult time, sandwiched between an 0-3 weekend in Arlington, Texas, and their upcoming series at No. 5 Georgia Tech. Szefc said that his team can’t let the timing of the loss affect it, though.
“The timing doesn’t make it tough, just an awfully, awfully poor performance. We have guys that need to get a lot of things straight, and I’ll take care of making that happen, for sure. But tonight I'll take the blame for this one.”
The Hokies and Yellow Jackets’ (12-1) series kicks off Friday at 6 p.m. ET on ACC Network Extra, followed by 2 p.m. and 1 p.m. starts on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, which are also on ACCNX.
Box Score: Marshall 13, Virginia Tech 4