Hammered those Blue Hens: Rutgers baseball explodes for 56 runs, 63 hits in sweep of Delaware
The Rutgers baseball team dominated with 56 runs and 63 hits in a sweep of Delaware this weekend. The Scarlet Knights (13-6, 0-0) scored 15, 27 and 14 runs, respectively, across the three games against the Blue Hens (8-10, 0-0).
Before taking on Delaware, Rutgers stopped at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to take on North Carolina on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In Tuesday’s affair, the Knights led the Tar Heels (17-4, 4-2) 6-5 after the top half of the seventh inning, but 8 runs combined in the bottom halves of the seventh and eighth innings combined helped carry North Carolina to a 13-7 victory.
In game two on Wednesday, command troubles on the mound hurt Rutgers’ chances of overcoming the Tar Heels in a close 9-8 defeat to North Carolina. The Tar Heels outscored the Knights 6-3 after the first six innings which proved to be too much for Rutgers in the second game at Boshamer Stadium.
After dropping two games in Chapel Hill to extend their losing streak to four, the Knights needed a bounce back and they did just that in Newark, Delaware against the Blue Hens.
Game 1: Rutgers wins 15-10
Despite being down 2-1 after the first two innings against Delaware, Rutgers would score 6 unanswered runs which included third-inning run-scoring doubles from sophomore outfielder Trevor Cohen, redshirt sophomore infielder Tony Santa Maria and junior infielder Josh Kuroda-Grauer.
After the Blue Hens tied the game, Santa Maria cracked a two-run homer in the top of the sixth inning to give the Knights an 8-6 lead.
In the seventh inning, back-to-back homers for Delaware would tie the game at 10. Luckily for Rutgers, freshman infielder Ty Doucette would come through by hitting a grand slam in the top of the eighth inning which gave it all the momentum in its 15-10 victory over the Blue Hens.
Doucette drove in 5 runs on the day while Kuroda-Grauer totaled four hits, two runs batted in (RBI) and crossed the plate three times.
Senior left-handed pitcher Justin Sinibaldi started on the mound for the Knights and tossed five innings while allowing 6 runs (four earned) and eight hits with six strikeouts.
Game 2: Rutgers wins 27-13
No, Rutgers did not play football with Delaware, but it did end up winning by two touchdowns and two extra points in its explosive victory over the Blue Hens.
The Knights started their tremendous day at the plate with a 7-run second inning that featured a grand slam from senior infielder Cameron Love and a steal of home by Cohen.
Rutgers would score 2 more runs in the third inning courtesy of an RBI triple off the bat of graduate student outfielder Pete Durocher and a run-scoring single from Doucette.
The Knights would go on to score 9 runs in the fifth and sixth innings combined off of a fifth inning three-run homer from Kuroda-Grauer, an RBI single from graduate student infielder Johnny Volpe, a bases-clearing double from junior outfielder RJ Johnson Jr. and a sixth inning run-scoring two-bagger from Kuroda-Grauer.
By the end of the sixth inning, Rutgers would lead by an astronomical score of 17-3.
It did not stop there.
The Knights tacked on 7 more runs in the top half of the eighth inning and 2 runs in the ninth to cruise to an astounding 14-run victory.
Six Rutgers batters totaled at least three hits on Saturday with Kuroda-Grauer leading the pack with five hits and six RBI. 12 Knights registered hits as the team tallied 29 total base knocks, 14 for extra bases.
Despite walking six batters, sophomore right-handed pitcher Christian Coppola had an efficient day on the mound with five innings of 2-run, three-hit ball with five strikeouts.
Game 3: Rutgers wins 14-3
After four innings of play in Sunday’s matchup, Rutgers and Delaware were knotted up at 3 runs, but the Knights would run away with the game by scoring 11 runs from the fifth-inning on.
Doucette would hit two home runs in as many appearances with a solo shot in the fifth and two-run dinger in the sixth. The Knights scored 8 runs in the sixth inning as they took advantage of wild pitches and errors while tacking on singles and doubles for runs.
Two more runs in the top of the ninth would give Rutgers its second double-digit victory in as many days.
Johnson totaled three of the Knights’ 20 hits and came through with three RBI while Doucette kept his hot weekend alive with four hits and four RBI. Santa Maria and Kuroda-Grauer both provided another spark in the lineup once again with 3 runs scored and two hits in Sunday’s game.
Graduate student right-handed pitcher Jake Marshall earned his first win of the season by firing three scoreless innings, relieving starter and freshman right-handed pitcher Zack Konstantinovsky who pitched the game’s first four frames for the Knights, giving up the Blue Hen's only 3 runs.
It was an extremely high-scoring series for Rutgers, who will be riding high when it heads back to Bainton Field on Livingston campus to face off against Rider at 3 p.m. on Tuesday and Lafayette at 3 p.m. on Wednesday. Both games will be broadcast on Big Ten Plus and 88.7 WRSU-FM.
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