Fielding errors lead to losses; Big Ten tourney outlook bleak
7th-place Cats a spot out of conference tournament after losing 3 to Ohio State
By Becky Plevin
The Daily Northwestern
In last weekend’s series against Illinois, the Northwestern baseball team’s fielding looked better than it had all season.
The Wildcats made impressive diving catches and committed only one error in three wins.
But fielding errors hurt the Cats as they lost three of four games in this past weekend’s contests against Ohio State.
“Yesterday we made some defensive miscues, and it cost us,” said NU coach Paul Stevens on Sunday. “Today we did the same thing. It really put us in some dire straits.”
The Cats (23-26-1, 12-16 Big Ten) are seventh in the Big Ten. NU has one more four-game series remaining before the Big Ten tournament, in which the conference’s top six teams compete.
NU is three games behind sixth-place Purdue.
In the first game on Saturday, NU had three errors in the 4-2 loss. In Sunday’s 8-4 loss, the Cats committed four errors.
In the sixth inning of two games, the Buckeyes (31-20, 18-10) jumped out to huge leads after capitalizing on NU weaknesses.
Four Cats relievers came to the mound in the sixth inning of Saturday’s second game that NU lost 9-1.
The pitchers faced 12 Ohio State batters and allowed six earned runs in the inning. There were three walks, one error, one hit batter and one wild pitch in the fiasco.
On Sunday, the Cats led 3-1 until Ohio State posted five runs in the sixth inning. Four of the five runs were unearned due to two NU fielding errors.
Left fielder Anthony Wycklendt said the poor play snowballed on the Cats during these innings.
“One guy makes an error, and then it seems easier for the next guy (that comes to bat),” Wycklendt said. “That’s what happens.
“They get more comfortable with their lead on us, that increases their confidence more and puts us on edge a little more.”
Wycklendt, who hammered in four RBI in the weekend series, had one error in Sunday’s game.
Shortstop Jon Mikrut said NU’s fielding errors not only empowered the Buckeyes’ hitters, but also effected the Cats’ pitching and hitting.
“The defense has to play to keep our pitchers going throughout the game,” Mikrut said. “We made some mistakes, and that’s when runs came.
“When we’re down on defense, it’s hard to get back on offense. It’s hard for pitchers to stay focused when they’re hitting the ball and we’re not fielding for them. That’s not the confidence you want in your defense.”
Mikrut had one error on Friday and one on Sunday.
NU’s strength so far this season has been its hitting, but the Cats couldn’t muster enough runs to make up for their other mishaps against Ohio State.
“We hit pretty well, but (we hit it) at people a lot,” Mikrut said. “It’s hard when you’re hitting right at guys. We were having tough luck with the bats.”
Although the team struggled in other aspects of the game, Stevens was pleased with the performances of his starting pitchers.
In NU’s only win of the weekend, starter J.A. Happ allowed one run and six hits in nine innings on Friday, leading the team to a 4-1 win. He struck out five batters, raising his season total to 96.
“I concentrated a little bit more, got ahead in the count, was throwing strikes and my change-up started coming around,” Happ said. “Our pitchers definitely pitched well enough to win, it just didn’t go our way this weekend.”
