NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Three Central Arkansas pitchers combined to four-hit Vanderbilt in its 5-4 win over the Commodores in Vandy’s home opener at Hawkins Field on Tuesday.
Vanderbilt pitchers Patrick Reilly, Grayson Moore, Thomas Schultz and Nick Maldonado combined to strike out 16 Bears while allowing just six hits (all singles) and two walks. But Central Arkansas didn't waste many opportunities, leaving just two men on base.
The Commodores, meanwhile, stranded eight. Jonathan Vastine hit a three-run homer in the eighth, providing Vanderbilt’s biggest offensive highlight.
Vanderbilt (2-2) took six walks and struck out just four times, but hit only .115 on balls in play.
"Give credit to Central Arkansas' pitching, they came right after us," Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said. "There were no real surprises but we didn't engage with the fastball very well until later in the game, but it was too late. ... The balls that we did hit hard, they defended. So, you've got to give them credit."
Moore was particularly effective, striking out eight in his first three innings of work. But his effectiveness began to wane in the seventh, when he walked the leadoff man, allowed a one-out single to AJ Mandolia before a ground-out scored UCA's fourth run, Then, left fielder Calvin Hewett dropped a two-out fly ball on the warning track for an error for what proved to be the deciding run.
"The little mistakes we made kind of added up," Corbin said. "Those walks both scored, the dropped ball scored, the ball that was bunted that should have been converted into an out and then two stolen bases later, that scored. ... We created some mistakes that ended up biting us."
The other walk was issued by Reilly with one out in the third, which kept an inning alive for Reid Bowman's two-out single that scored the game's second run.
Central Arkansas got four men on in the first six innings, and three of them scored. (The Bears didn’t leave a man on due to a caught-stealing to end the third.)
In the sixth, Tanner Leonard led off with a single, stole second and third and scored on Bowman’s sacrifice fly to right.
Vanderbilt didn’t get its first run or hit until the fifth as lefty Payton Windham kept the Commodores off-balance before a string of base runners forced him from the game after 71 pitches and two outs.
The Bears, however, weren’t getting a glove on Vastine’s one-out single to right. He later scored from second on a throwing error when T.J. McKenzie reached after a ground-out.
UCA made some terrific defensive plays early behind Windham, a JUCO transfer who had a 5.23 ERA and 65 strikeouts in 51 2/3 innings last season.
Bowman, the Bears' shortstop, made another great one, leaping to stab a line drive headed for center off the bat of McKenzie in the ninth.
Reilly needed 16 pitches to get through the first, throwing 13 fastballs that sat between 92-96 and getting a perfect inning on 16 pitches (12 strikes) that included a pair of strikeouts.
Reilly got the Bears in order in the second, with a strikeout on a 96-mile-an-hour fastball accounting for the second out. The spin rate on his fastball sat around 2,400.
Reilly’s velocity dropped to around 91 late in the third inning and that’s when the Bears got the two-RBI single from Bowman. .
The Commdores play UAB on Wednesday at Hawkins Fiel at 4:30, with Greysen Carter getting the start.
