Tulane Baseball Swept by Charlotte, 6-3
After showing promise in the finale against league-leading UTSA and nationally ranked Southern Miss, the Tulane baseball team fell back into a slump this weekend, losing three straight to Charlotte, capped off with a 6-3 defeat on Sunday. The Green Wave was swept for the first time since a visit to UAB at the end of March.
Games 1 and 2 in the Tulane baseball series against bottom-of-the-American-Conference-barrel Charlotte were forgettable, as the Green Wave was shut out in a 10-run ruled game on Friday, and not much better results on Saturday in an 8-2 loss.
When things aren't working, you'll try almost anything.
Shuffling the Baseball Deck, Hoping for Something Different
Tulane coach Jay Uhlman took the Wave deck and shuffled things around, hoping to put a spark in the Green Wave. Though the position starters were pretty much the same, things changed defensively, offensively, and on the mound.
Changes in the field included the usually reliable Jason Wachs, who had issues Saturday fielding the ball in his usual right field position letting a pair of hits get behind him allowing runners to advance, moving to designated hitter while the usual DH, Matthias Haas, took the right field slot.
A Closer Becomes a Starter
The shuffling continued on the pitcher's mound, as, for the first time in his Tulane career, Green Wave closer Sam Larson started on the hill. The junior right-hander delivered early, putting 49er batters down in order in the first, working around a bases-loaded situation in the second inning to keep the damage to a minimum, then ringing up three strikeouts in the third as Charlotte hung on to a 1-0 lead through three.
Larson ended his day in North Carolina after three innings of work, striking out a career high seven, not giving up a hit, but giving up an earned run.
A parade of five more pitchers would follow Larson, the third of which, Jude Abbadessa, would be saddled with the loss giving up the go-ahead runs in two-thirds of an inning.
Lack of Offense
The real story, though, was the slumbering bats of the Sluggerbirds this weekend. In Friday's 10-0 shutout, the Green Wave could only manage three hits. In Saturday's 8-2 defeat, Tulane had eight hits and a half dozen walks, but left 15 stranded on the base paths. On Sunday, only four hits could be meted out. In a microcosm of the offensive weekend for the Wave, the team's best hitter, Jason Wachs was a collective 1-for 12 at the plate in the three games, getting his only hit midway through Sunday's game.
The loss drops Tulane into a three-way tie for the bottom of the American standings with Charlotte and South Florida, all three sitting at 8-13 in league play. The Green Wave close out their home schedule against USF next weekend.
Tulane continues its road trip in Baton Rouge this Tuesday, as the Green Wave take on defending national champion LSU Tigers, 6:30 p.m. at Alex Box Stadium.
Add us as a preferred source on Google
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.