GRANVILLE — Fordham left fielder Jake Baker became an unfortunate ball magnet in the top of the fifth inning.
On one swing, he fouled a ball off the ground near home plate. It bounced straight back at him and grazed his cheek. Baker stepped out of the box for a minute to make sure everything was OK — which it was.
Then on the very next pitch, Nick Snyder hit Baker in the face. This time he was not OK as blood dribbled down his chin. Baker sat on the ground for several minutes as Fordham’s trainer checked on him, then was pulled from the game to an ovation from the Monongalia County Ballpark crowd.
Several Mountaineers gave Baker fist-bumps as he made his way to the clubhouse over the right-field wall.
Scully calls Rams
Vin Scully has made some of the most famous calls in baseball history. On Friday, the retired Dodgers broadcaster made a call to his old team.
Scully, a 1949 Fordham graduate, phoned in to wish the Rams good luck before their first-round game against West Virginia.
Scully actually played two seasons at Fordham, including a game against Yale and future president George H.W. Bush. He went on to call Dodgers games for 66 years, moving west with the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. He retired from the broadcast booth after the 2016 season.
Drought snapped
Heading into the ninth inning of Friday’s first-round game against Duke, Texas A&M had scored one run in its previous 26 innings. Mentally, the Aggies were poised to be in the worst possible scenario for a team heading into the loser’s bracket.
But the Aggies snapped out of their hitting malaise, scoring four runs and bringing the tying run to the plate in their 8-5 loss to Duke. Though they would have obviously preferred a win, the productive ninth provided some hope for A&M moving forward.
“I definitely think it’s a shot of confidence for our offense,” said first baseman Hunter Coleman. “We’ve been struggling a little bit. To kind of just go in and take something from them and give us a little momentum going into tomorrow when our backs are against the wall, I think it’s definitely going to help.”
Closers gotta close
Duke closer Thomas Girard came into regionals with a sterling 1.44 ERA and was a perfect 9-for-9 in save situations.
Which is exactly why it ended up being an issue that he entered the game with an 8-1 lead.
“I guarantee if that’s a close ballgame, he doesn’t do that. He hasn’t done that all year,” said Duke coach Chris Pollard. “Closers are closers for a reason. They smell the finish line. When they’ve got that big game, sometimes it’s easy to pull up and coast across the finish line.”
Pollard said he won’t hesitate to go back to Girard the rest of the tournament.
“If we’re in this spot [Saturday], he’s going right back out there,” Pollard said.
Sophomore lefty Matt Dockman came in to record the final two outs on groundouts to help the Blue Devils advance to today’s winner’s bracket semifinals.
One bad inning
On Monday, Texas A&M starter John Doxakis will likely hear his name selected in the first round of the MLB Draft or in the compensation picks that precede the second round.
For six innings during Friday’s 8-5 loss against Duke, the 6-foot-4 lefty looked every bit the part.
Through the first three innings, he allowed just one hit and struck out six.
“He’s one of the best arms in the country,” Duke coach Chris Pollard said.
Over his final three innings, Doxakis allowed just one hit and struck out two more.
But in the fourth, Duke scored three runs on Erikson Nichols’ three-run home run and then added one more after Chris Crabtree doubled and scored on RJ Schreck’s fielder’s choice.
“It was just one of those innings where I kind of got away from the scouting report we had,” Doxakis said. “You can’t leave mistakes over the plate or else they’re going to punish it. That’s all that happened (in) that inning. They put some really good swings on some balls and knocked them around the park.”
In all, Doxakis allowed six hits and four runs over his seven innings. He walked none and fanned nine.
