By outreach@cw.ua.edu (Cody Estremera)
The ability to respond has been a strength of the Alabama baseball team through the first five games of the season. However, game number six was a different story.
Alabama dropped the first game of the Oral Roberts series 6-3, and brought out Jake Walters in the second game to respond. However, Walters struggled from the start allowing two runs in the first inning, and five overall, while striking out five.
Garret Rukes, Davis Vainer, Zac Rogers and Mike Oczypok finished the game pitching for the Crimson Tide. Combined they allowed just two hits and combined for five strikeouts.
“If our bullpen doesn’t come in there and get some big outs for us, that game isn’t even close,” Alabama coach Greg Goff said. “We are trying to figure these guys out. It’s a work in progress.”
Alabama’s offense scattered 11 hits over the nine inning game, while scoring four runs. Cobie Vance increased his hit streak to six with a 2-for-4 day and a RBI.
“You look at his approach,” Goff said. “He’s using all fields. We need to get all nine guys to hit to all fields. He got some big hits for us tonight, and he’s been the catalyst so far.”
Cody Henry added his first RBI on the season with his 2-for-4 performance.
The biggest problem for Alabama was stringing hits together. When the Crimson Tide scored it managed to string together two or three hits in a row, which only happened twice.
“We had 12 hits tonight and some of them weren’t timely,” Henry said. “If we string them together, it’ll be a lot better situational hitting. You can see what they did tonight. They had a lot of two out, two strike hits.”
Noah Cummings made the difference today. The Oral Roberts right fielder was responsible for three of the five runs for the Golden Eagles, including a two run home run in the top of the first inning. He finished 2-for-4 along with a walk and a stolen base.
Josh McMinn was golden for the Golden Eagles, scattering eight hits over 5.2 innings of work.
Source:: The Crimson White Sports
