Griffin Stieg allowed myriad baserunners on Friday — 10 to be exact — but he made enough timely pitches across the first six innings to allow just one to cross home plate.
The bullpen behind him yielded 11 baserunners in the final three innings, though it allowed four to score. Virginia Tech baseball fell to Pitt 5-4 after entering the eighth inning ahead 4-1.
“It puts a sour taste in your mouth,” Hokies outfielder Hudson Lutterman said. “Stieg pitched great. It’s what we expect him to do. We have to do better.”
It wasn’t the most shutdown quality start of Stieg’s four this season, but he stranded six runners while ensuring none of the Panthers’ nine hits came with runners in scoring position. Their only run within the first six innings came via designated hitter Sebastian Pisacreta’s second-inning sacrifice fly.
Tech’s bullpen started strong with Chase Swift, who blew through the seventh inning in just four batters. It was only after the decision to replace him with Logan Eisenreich in the eighth that things unraveled for the Hokies (18-19, 8-12 ACC).
On why Swift, whose last appearance came against Liberty two midweek games ago, was not kept in the game following his four-out, 22-pitch seventh inning:
“He hadn’t pitched in 10 days,” Tech head coach John Szefc said. “That was about as much as you were gonna get out of him. I wish we could have gone longer, but he was probably good for about three outs, and that’s what we got out of him.”
Eisenreich battled outfielder Lorenzo Carrier, though he eventually took a leadoff eight-pitch walk, which third baseman Kai Wagner followed with a single.
During Carrier’s at-bat, Tech catcher Henry Cooke took a leadoff pitch to the hand and attempted to stay in the game before coming out during Wagner’s at-bat. Anderson French played the final two innings behind home plate. Szefc said that Cooke is being evaluated and his status for Sunday’s rubber match is uncertain.
With two on, second baseman Trey Fenderson — who finished 3-for-4 with three RBI — singled to load the bases. Catcher Joey Baran knocked a well-placed fielder's choice to Owen Petrich to score a run, though Wagner was out at third. The two remaining runners advanced with Pisacreta’s groundout, then Carter Dierdorf singled through the middle to score both and tie the game.
Eisenreich allowed another single but got AJ Nessler to fly out and strand two runners. However, the save was already blown. The right-hander has entered two of his last four ACC relief outings in high-leverage situations and struggled. The last came March 27 against Stanford, when he allowed five earned runs in the eighth inning after entering with the game tied.
“I don’t know why he struggles in those moments,” Szefc said of Eisenreich. “I’d like to know myself. You give guys opportunities, they’ve got to take advantage of their opportunities. You can’t make pitches and plays down the stretch, you lose. That’s the way it is.”
Eisenreich’s struggles seem situational. The sophomore received his first start of the year last weekend against Boston College and allowed just two earned runs over five innings. Szefc opted to return him to the bullpen this weekend.
The South Riding native continued his outing into the ninth, when he was removed after allowing a single and hitting Carrier on the first pitch of his at-bat. Brody Roe eventually forced an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded, but he could not keep the go-ahead run from coming around.
The lefty threw eight straight balls after going up 0-2 on pinch-hitter Anthony LaSala, putting him on to load the bases before Baran took four straight misses to force in the 5-4 run.
On the other side, the Panthers executed a rare Saturday bullpen game, using eight arms, only three of which allowed an earned run.
The first was right-hander Andrew Luczak, who allowed Ethan Ball on base with a dropped third strike wild pitch before walking Cooke to start the fourth inning. Lefty Michael Gray relieved Luczak and only allowed a Sam Grube sacrifice fly, which tied the game at one.
Gray walked Petrich in the following side before allowing him to take third with an errant throw to first on Sam Gates’ sacrifice bunt. Right-hander Joey Ciancimino entered and allowed an unearned run as Daniel grounded into a run-scoring — not RBI — double play.
Ciancimino’s day was done when Lutterman homered off him in the sixth to put the Hokies up 3-1. Ethan Gibson added a fourth run with a sacrifice fly later that inning, bringing home Grube.
However, Pitt’s bullpen ace, right-hander Eddie Smink, earned the win by shutting Tech down across the final two innings.
“What [Pitt head coach Mike Bell] did with his staff, that was tremendous,” Szefc said. “We didn’t do enough to win offensively. … Give him credit, the way he utilized those guys. They made pitches when they had to. They took advantage of their opportunities and we didn’t.”
Tech’s offense has struggled against teams utilizing the bullpen game this season. Stanford threw seven arms en route to a rubber-match win over Tech on March 29. On March 22, Duke’s six-man bullpen held the Hokies to just two earned runs, even though the Blue Devils received a somewhat classic 3 ⅔ innings start that day
“They’re just tough, not getting into a rhythm with a pitcher,” Luterman said of bullpen games. “You only get one at-bat max off a bullpen arm. You’re seeing his stuff for the first time. If his ball runs an inch more than you thought it was gonna run, but it was the first time seeing him, you don’t have the luxury of experience with that guy.”
The upside to Pitt using eight arms on Saturday — more often a strategy on Sundays — for the Hokies is that its bullpen should be thin in the rubber match. The first pitch of that game comes Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on ACC Network Extra.
With Eisenreich not getting a second straight start this weekend, Szefc & Co. will likely turn to Ethan Grim, Aiden Robertson or, less likely, Madden Clement to start the final game of the weekend, though Szefc declined to give any information on that front. Grim is the only one of the three with an ACC start this season, but hasn’t pitched in that role since March 13 at Virginia.
Pitt is expected to start right-hander Drew Lafferty, who has a 5.87 ERA in nine starts this season.
Box Score: Pitt 5, Virginia Tech 4