Humbling Game
May 11, 2008 08:55 PM | General
May 11, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Greg Van Zant figures his team was about five minutes away from losing Sunday’s game against Louisville. The Cardinals had just finished their half of the sixth inning when it began to rain.
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| Designated hitter Grant Buckner went 2 for 4 and scored the game-tying run in the bottom of the ninth.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Van Zant could hear the rumble of thunder in the distance, walked out to alert the umpires, and that gave his team enough time to get the tarp on the field. Had the umpires waited an extra five minutes, the skies would have opened on an uncovered infield and Louisville would have driven out of Morgantown with a rain-shorted, 4-0 victory.
“Man it’s such a fine line, this Big East baseball,” Van Zant said after his team’s 5-4, come-from-behind victory in the 10th.
Van Zant isn’t kidding. Three times the Mountaineers were down to their last strike in the bottom of the ninth, trailing 4-2 to a team that last year went to the College World Series.
Grant Buckner, not to be confused with Bill Buckner, had all of 38 at-bats coming into today’s game when Van Zant chose to start him in the designated hitter spot.
“Our DH has been striking out way too much lately and we needed someone in there that can put the ball in play,” Van Zant said.
Grant Buckner is that guy. With a runner on first and down to his last strike, Buckner lined a shot off the pitcher’s leg and legged out an infield hit to keep the inning alive.
Van Zant then rolled the dice and went to his bench for one of the two left-handed pinch-hitters on the team. He didn’t want to use Eric Saffel because he didn’t want to burn another pitcher, so he picked senior Brent Lockhart - the same Brent Lockhart that was hitless in just seven plate appearances.
Not 0 for 7 the series - that’s 0 for 7 for the season.
“Their closer was tough on right-handed hitters so I wanted to get a left-handed bat in the game,” Van Zant explained.
Once again, Lockhart was down to his last strike before he ripped a shot down the leftfield line that plated Joe Agreste and pulled the Mountaineers to within one run.
“I’m thinking to myself, it is Lockhart’s time,” Van Zant said. “The count goes to two strikes and he hits the ball hard.”
Leadoff batter Justin Parks walked up to the plate and ran the count to - you guessed it - two strikes. Like Buckner and Lockhart before him, Parks managed to bear down and get a solid single to left, knocking in Buckner to tie the game at four.
Van Zant waved Lockhart home from second but Louisville leftfielder Josh Richmond fired a missile to the plate that got Lockhart by at least 10 feet.
“It was wet and I figured, what the heck, he might slip or something,” Van Zant said.
In the meantime, Van Zant chose to go to his bullpen and bring in freshman Jarryd Summers in the seventh. Starter Billy Gross pitched well, giving up four earned runs on nine hits in six innings, but Summers was even better.
“I may have taken out Billy sooner but I didn’t want to use two pitchers before the rain,” Van Zant reasoned.
Summers retired the side in the eighth after West Virginia had pulled to within two, and he put up zeroes in the ninth and the all-important 10th. The freshman was able to work out of a jam in the 10th when he allowed a two-out single to Andrew Clark and then hit Richmond. Summers then got No. 9 hitter Drew Haynes to ground out to Jedd Gyorko at second to end the inning.
In the bottom of the 10th, the Mountaineers got right to work. Tyler Kuhn drew a walk in front of Jedd Gyorko, a .416 hitter who executed a perfect sacrifice bunt to the first baseman to move Kuhn to second.
That set the stage for Vince Belnome to step up and deliver the game-winning single up the middle. If you recall, it was Belnome who came to the plate in game one on Saturday with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth and grounded into a game-ending double play. That ball couldn’t have been 15-feet away from his game-winning single on Sunday.
“For such a young group of guys to go through a 2-hour rain delay and then to remain so focused in such a big game shows a lot of maturity,” said Van Zant. “Tyler Kuhn had the position players out jogging in the outfield and getting loose once the tarp was pulled off. That’s the type of senior leadership good teams have.”
Van Zant admitted that had the game not been delayed for two hours, Louisville starting pitcher Bob Revesz probably wouldn’t have come out of the game. And if Revesz stays in the game the Mountaineers probably lose. All West Virginia could manage was four weak singles in five innings against Revesz.
“I told our guys we’re in their bullpen now. If we score two runs each inning for the remainder of the game we win 6-4,” Van Zant said.
Van Zant looked like Casey Stengel today. He made the right moves at the right times against a high-quality team. Yet Van Zant will be the first one to tell you about the move he made back in the first game of the series when, down 4-0, the Mountaineers had something going in the bottom of the fifth by getting their first two runners on base.
Justin Parks, who handles the bat as well as anybody on the team, popped up his sacrifice bunt attempt to the pitcher and Dan DiBartolomeo got doubled off at second.
The rally was over and the fans along the third-base line were mumbling expletives at that stupid third base coach who signaled in the bunt. The stupid third base coach was Van Zant.
“Baseball is a humbling game,” Van Zant laughed. “It’s very humbling.”
