Matthew Reichert ’28
Staff Writer
For those of you who do not know, in college baseball there is a mercy rule: if one team is leading by ten or more runs after seven innings the game ends. That previous sentence was not for the benefit of any member of the Holy Cross Baseball team — the Crusaders are very familiar with this rule. In the first game of their series against Binghamton, Holy Cross was mercied for the third time this season (they’ve lost 26 to 6 against George Mason and 21 to 9 against the Virginia Military Institute) as they lost — in seven innings — to Binghamton 16 to 5.
Baseball is a fickle game though. The best teams lose a third of their games and even the White Sox beat the Yankees sometimes. Maybe these three losses are anomalies. In some sense that is true. Holy Cross is not mercied in most games. However, they also have not won most of their games and have not defeated any of their opponents in seven innings. There appears to be a problem.
In the first game against Binghamton there were several problems. The top three stood on the mound. The starter gave up five runs in less than two innings; the pitcher who relieved him fared little better, also allowing five runs but in 2 and a third innings; and the third and final pitcher demonstrated the least bad performance, allowing four runs in exactly two innings.
Really the only bright spot for the Crusaders came in the form of shortstop Jimmy King. He batted in four of the five runs Holy Cross scored and was a double away from the cycle. Besides that, this game went poorly and I’d like to move on.
On the bright side, maybe the seven inning game on Friday allowed the Crusaders to show up well rested for the double header on Saturday. It certainly didn’t look like that to start though. By the end of the first inning of the first game Holy Cross was already down 0-4. However, a combination of RBIs from Egrie, Scanlon, Baillargeon, Jones, and Spanner gave the Crusaders a one run lead. A three-run home-run from Sean Scanlon brought his RBI count to four for the day, pushed the score to 8-5 Crusaders, and placed the game out of reach. Binghamton scored three more runs just to keep the game interesting but Holy Cross won ten to seven.
Maybe Holy Cross should not have scored those extra two runs in the seventh inning of the first game. Royer and Cooney both hit RBI doubles but I’m worried they used the last bit of offense HC had in them for the day. In the second game they only had two hits and were shut out in a six run defeat.
You may look at the blow-out and the shut-out against Binghamton and say Holy Cross baseball is bad this year. You’d be wrong. They are mediocre and in the Patriot League, that’s pretty good. Lehigh is the only team in the conference that’s won more games than they’ve lost so far. Holy Cross, despite being 8-10 after the Binghamton series, was left with the third highest winning percentage in the league. So, the team isn’t playing great. Well, they don’t have to be great. They have to be okay and this past weekend there was enough to believe that’s attainable.
Sean Scanlon and Jimmy King each had games where they beat the brakes off the baseball. The team was able to comeback from a frankly embarrassing loss in the first game to win the next day. The pitching wasn’t all that good but in a league where all but one team has a losing record, they might be able to survive it. The weekend series was bad, but it wasn’t all bad. If the Crusaders can be just a little bit better than bad, if they can display just a little more of what was positive this weekend, they can be mediocre. And, if they can be mediocre they can win the Patriot League title. And, if they win the Patriot League title, no matter what their record says, this year’s Holy Cross Baseball team will have been great.
Featured image courtesy of Holy Cross Athletics
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