First-year Easton Bobb throws a pitch. The Tommies sent four less-experienced pitchers to the mound in their 11-0 loss to the Gophers Wednesday at Koch Diamond. (Dom Tritchler/The Crest) 
Sophomore infielder Tanner Recchio and junior outfielder Easton Fritcher were the only Tommies to record hits. (Dom Tritchler/The Crest) 
St. Thomas lost Wednesday’s non-conference matchup in seven innings. (Dom Tritchler/The Crest) 
St. Thomas will play a weekend series against Omaha next. Friday’s game is scheduled for 3 p.m. (Dom Tritchler/The Crest) 
Wednesday’s pitchers in purple combined for less than 40 innings all season. (Dom Tritchler/The Crest)
St. Thomas baseball suffered an 11-0 defeat against the University of Minnesota Wednesday afternoon at Koch Diamond.
The Gophers nabbed all three games of the season against St. Thomas by a combined margin of 31-4. The game also marked the first time Gopher baseball has visited Koch Diamond.
“Today was a kick in the shorts …(we) just looked tired (and) didn’t quite have that competition we were looking for,” coach Chris Olean said.
The Tommies pitching staff was tested early. The Gophers piled two walks and a single to fill the bases in the first inning. Minnesota sophomore infielder Charlie Sutherland blasted a deep single to center field to push all three runs across.
The ballgame got out of reach for the Tommies quickly. After the first-inning ambush, the Gophers scored another eight unanswered runs, capped by a three-run homer in the sixth by junior infielder Jack Mosh over the right field fence.
Mosh entered the game hitting .143, without a homer, in 7 at-bats.
“When you just have the unforced errors, we didn’t do a good job of holding runners on, (those were) free bases … you look up at the eleven-nothing at the end and we probably gave them seven of them. That’s the piece (where) you get frustrated as a coach,” Olean said.
Tommie pitchers featured in this game saw limited action prior. All four pitchers —first-years Easton Bobb and Chris Petersen, junior Nolan Kemp and senior Carl Cano— have a combined 39 ⅔ innings thrown this season, with Cano racking 19 ⅔.
“It’s really about getting some guys experience, particularly on the mound. In this case, Easton, who had the start, had a bad day. But he’s still gonna have a chance to be really good here. He just has to settle down and find a way to limit those walks,” Olean said.
St. Thomas struggled in the batter’s box as well. Sophomore infielder Tanner Recchio and junior outfielder Easton Fritcher combined for all four Tommie hits, while the rest of the lineup went 0-19.
“Playing a Power Five is always gonna be challenging, no matter who it is,” Olean said.
After a midweek game against the Gophers, the Tommies will play eight of their last 11 games at home.
St. Thomas sits in first place with three conference series left in the season. Since the start of April, the Tommies are 8-5 against conference opponents. The Tommies still lead the Summit League in batting average, but Olean said “we’re just kind of waiting for everything to start to click again.”
“It’s kind of been an interesting year, we’re obviously in a good position in-conference and have a chance to finish it off. Started off hitting really well, that’s kind of tapered a bit. Then we started to pitch really well in-conference,” Olean said.
Olean also acknowledged the team was sharp on both sides in their previous series against Oral Roberts.
“We had a few games down there where we pitched well and had some competitive at-bats, even though some of the runs didn’t score,” Olean said.
Omaha will visit St. Thomas this weekend for a three-game series. Friday’s game is scheduled at 3 p.m.
Juan Del Valle can be reached at delv9625@stthomas.edu.
