2025 Baseball Season

[TobiasCatsup]

Gameday! Four games this weekend, all at Pitt Field. The Spiders (10-2) will take on:

• UMass Lowell (3-6): Friday, 2PM, stream on ESPN+. Esteban Rodriguez will be the starting pitcher.
• Lafayette (1-9): Saturday, 10AM, no stream. Jackson Hinchliffe will be the starting pitcher.
• UMass Lowell: Saturday, 2PM, no stream. Chase Topolski will be the starting pitcher.
• Lafayette: Sunday, 2:30PM, stream on ESPN+. Starting pitcher TBD.

This will be our first time in program history facing UMass Lowell. Pitching has been the big problem for the River Hawks (team ERA > 9) but they do have two impressive bats to highlight. Sean O'Leary (Sophomore 1B/DH) was named America East Player of the Week this past Tuesday, after hitting 7-11 (.636) in their weekend series against USC Upstate. In Saturday's game, O'Leary smashed two home runs and tallied seven RBIs and four runs. On the season he is slashing .364/.447/.697. The team leader in OPS, however, is Senior 1B/DH Brandon Fish, who is slashing .469/.553/.750, and earned America East Player of the Week honors after the first weekend series of the year. Fish only has one HR and 6 RBIs to his name, but is the team leader in hits (15) and doubles (6). He has played three full seasons for UMass Lowell (was named to the America East All-Rookie Team in 2022), and has never hit above .275, so this leap has been quite impressive.

Lafayette has played three weekend series this year: @Southern Miss (0-4), @Western Kentucky (0-3), and @Davidson (1-2), a solid Non-Conference slate with no results to show for it. Pitching has been the glaring problem for the Leopards as well (Team ERA just under 9), but the hitting (team AVG .227) leaves something to be desired as well. After finishing the 2023 and 2024 campaigns for Lafayette with averages in the .260s, Senior OF Easton Brenner got off to a scorching start, and picked up Patriot League Player of the Week honors after their opening weekend at Southern Miss. He went 7-10, with one HR and five RBIs. He has since regressed a bit, batting 3-19 (.158) in Lafayette's second and third series of the year. Another name to watch is 2024 All-Patriot League First Team and 2025 All-Patriot Preseason Team catcher Ethan Swidler. He has picked up hits in five of Lafayette's last six games.

I won't get too greedy, so let's take 3 of 4 this weekend!

 

[MDspider8]

Think today is a big one for E-Rod - understand he's still getting built up, but would like to see at least 3/4 solid innings from him.

 

[spiderstudent17]

Spiders win!

 

[MDspider8]

Another run-rule victory against a bad team, just what we should do. E-Rod goes 5 strong just like I hoped.

Jaffe is coming for that A10 POY!!

 

[AnnapSpider]

Yeah, as of last season we were still not fully funding the program to the maximum 11.7 scholarships available. The quote was "“the Spiders are close but not at the NCAA maximum for baseball scholarships (11.7).” I don't think that's changed, especially with the new roster limit rules that will go into effect next year.

2024 Baseball Season

The 2024 baseball schedule just released, link is below. Only two games against power conference opponents (BC & UVA) and looks to be a pretty soft schedule overall, which makes sense for what will be rebuilding team with a first-year coach. Also, the Atlantic 10 Baseball Championship has now...

richmond.forums.rivals.com

How does that .7 scholarship work?

 

[SFspidur]

Prior to the House settlement blowing things up, baseball was an equivalency sport, so scholarships could be split among up to 32 players. I believe anyone receiving scholarship money had to receive at least a 25% scholarship. Full rides were pretty rare.

 

[urfan1]

Prior to the House settlement blowing things up, baseball was an equivalency sport, so scholarships could be split among up to 32 players. I believe anyone receiving scholarship money had to receive at least a 25% scholarship. Full rides were pretty rare.

Had a baseball friend tell me the only full rides went to Pitchers and SS.

 

[SFspidur]

Hinchliffe has no-hit Lafayette through 4 innings, but we've only managed one run ourselves on an Elko double to plate O'Brien in the 2nd. Heading to the bottom of the 4th.

 

[SFspidur]

Reinke comes on for the 5th and gets the first two outs, but then a HBP and two singles score a run and it's 1–1.

 

[SFspidur]

Spiders retake the lead without a hit...O'Keefe walk, advanced on WP, advanced on ground out, scored on SF. 2–1 heading to the 6th.

 

[SFspidur]

Bernstein solo shot makes it 3–1. Spiders with only three hits, but it's the runs that count.

Headed to the 7th.

 

[SFspidur]

Small ball gets another Spider run in the bottom of the 8th with Larson getting HBP, stealing second, and then being driven home by a Whitley single. 4–1 Spiders, but looking for more with Whitely stealing second and Bernstein getting HBP. Still one out.

Edit: Jaffe double scores two more to make it 6–1!

Edit 2: O'Brien walks and Arcamone triples to bring home two more. And then AOK fouls out to get Arcamone home. 9–1.

 

[SFspidur]

Spiders take the 9–1 win as Rigot sets down the final 6 Lafayette batters. Grab some lunch and get ready for Lowell!

 

[SFspidur]

Lowell gets a 2-run homer in the first off Topolski, but the Spiders respond with 5 in the bottom half of the frame and chased the starting pitcher after only two outs. Things have settled down since then, though both teams continued to put runners on until the bottom of the third when the Spiders quickly went down in order. On to the 4th.

 

[SFspidur]

Spiders continue to string things together between hits of their own and gifts from the Lowell pitchers. Scored three in the 4th and three more in the 5th to make it 11–2. Heading to the 6th.

 

[SFspidur]

Spiders put a cherry on top in the 8th with an O’Brien triple and an Arcamone single to make it 12–2 and mercy rule it.

 

[Wood Hall]

Thanks for the updates. Spent the afternoon at an OSU game on a rare 60-degree, sunny early March afternoon!

 

[Eight Legger]

So we are 13-2 already. I did not see this coming. Even though we haven't played a bunch of top-25s, it's still impressive. We are handling our business against these teams.

A nice bonus: vcu sucks. They are 3-10 and have played a few of the same teams we have. They hired a 25-year-old ex player as their manager. Looks like he's in over his head at this point.

 

[Ferrum Spider]

So we 13-2 already. I did not see this coming. Even though we haven't played a bunch of top-25s, it's still impressive. We are handling our business against these teams.

A nice bonus: vcu sucks. They are 3-10 and have played a few of the same teams we have. They hired a 25-year-old ex player as their manager. Looks like he's in over his head at this point.

Yup, played a schedule like this the past 15 years and never could come out much better than .500 and usually worse, so this is a breath of fresh air. ERA below 4.00 when most years it’s above 6.00. Doing it with a few D3 grad students as well. Curious to see how this translates to A10 play.