Despite losing two of three games, this was a much better weekend than the one before, as the Tigers played much tougher against one of the Colonial Athletic Association’s best. The College of Charleston jumped out to a 6-0 lead after the first inning in Friday’s game, but Towson held them to two runs the rest of the way. Unfortunately, the offense couldn’t come all the way back, leaving the home team on the short end of an 8-3 score. On Saturday, the Tigers tied the game at five runs apiece after four innings, but the Cougars pulled away for a 13-5 victory. All of Charleston’s runs came against guys who, at times this season, have been Towson’s best pitchers, Michael Adams and Dean Stramara.
That’s been one of the great shames of this season for Towson. At the end of the season, the Tigers pitching numbers are going to look bad, but for assorted stretches they have gotten excellent performances from their starters. Just never at the same time. At the beginning of the year it was David Marriggi and Gavin Weyman pitching well, as Adams struggled to find a rhythm and Alex Cuas struggled. Then Adams went on an extended streak of fantastic pitching, but it was just as Weyman hit a downturn for several weeks. Now Weyman (being featured in more of a “piggyback” relief role) and Cuas have been excellent for several weeks, but Marriggi and Adams have hit a skid at the same time. Similar things have happened in the bullpen, as guys like Stramara, Jake Pecilunas, and Matt Watters, among others, have juggled stretches of excellence with hiccups that eventually cost Towson games and will skew their season stats at the end of the year.
Pictured: Not, in fact, a 2018 Towson pitching performance.
Some of this can be chalked up to chance, or bad luck, or the baseball gods frowning, but much of it is, of course, deserved and natural. This is a staff with some talent, but also featuring many players who are either young, new to this level, coming off of injuries, or a combination of all three. And they are guided by an entirely new coaching staff, who had to get their footing and let their lessons and philosophies take hold. Struggle was to be expected this year. It’s just too bad all, or most, of these pitchers couldn’t have aligned their excellent stretches for a few weeks. Once a team gets on a winning streak and gains some confidence, you never know what can happen.
The good news is a lot of these guys will be back next year and can reasonably be expected to continue their improvement. The Tigers will graduate Adams and Marriggi, but Weyman, Cuas, and Stramara will all be seniors and should be favorites to lead the starting rotation. Behind them, young players like Pecilunas, Watters, Josh Seils and Kody Reeser have shown a lot of promise this season. Add to that an incoming class that already includes some lefty hurlers, one of whom recently threw a no-hitter, and it’s actually pretty easy to see some sunshine on the horizon for the Towson baseball program.
Positive Pixels
I attended Sunday’s game (well, the second half of it – I mis-remembered the scheduled start time and showed up in the fifth inning), which was a Towson victory and evened my watching-in-person record to 2-2. I was treated to some excellent pitching in that one. In fact, that’s why this recap is so late. I was able to get some decent video and was hoping to include some clips in this post, but video editing is not my forte and time started getting away from me. I’ve decided to use those clips when I put together some player profiles, which I hope to do this month, but may come out shortly after the season. I did make some observations, however, about both Tigers pitchers who combined for the 5-3 win.
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- Before I get to the players, one of the best parts of Sunday’s game was the large contingent of little league players in attendance. Their enthusiasm was infectious. When I spoke with Coach Tyner earlier this season, he mentioned outreach to local little league teams as something on his agenda, and to my eye it appears to be working out wonderfully. The kids were able to go onto the field after the game to meet the players and they were given posters and baseball cards to get signed. It was beyond cool.
- Sitting behind home plate and watching Alex Cuas was a bit of a revelation. The junior is listed at 6′ 1″, but as I’ve written before, he seems an inch or two taller than that. He has a presence on the mound that is noticeable (it’s probably not a surprise that he was just named an All-American by the National Strength and Conditioning Association). Cuas has struggled with bouts of wildness at times this year, which probably has something to do with the crossfire delivery he employs, right out of the Jake Arrieta playbook. When he is controlling the ball, as he was most of the time I saw him, it makes for some very tough at-bats. His pitches have a ton of movement. I am still learning how to identify pitches, but if I had to guess I think he primarily throws a sinking, two-seam fastball and a hard curve ball with an 11-5 break. He also busted out a couple of pitches that must have been change-ups, which had a lot of arm-side run. Cuas also had a nice heads-up play to cover home on a wild pitch and tag out a potential Charleston score. In his last two starts, against the two best offenses in the CAA, Cuas has allowed one earned run in 12 innings, giving up only seven hits and striking out a batter per inning. Six walks and three wild pitches point to some work left to do, but there is a lot of potential here.
- Following Cuas, Kody Reeser made his first relief appearance of the season. While he did give up his first hits, and runs, in his return from Tommy John surgery, Reeser closed out the last two innings of the game to earn the save. His first inning was a thing of beauty, as he entered with a runner on first and nobody out and threw two pitches to induce a double-play and a pop-out to end the frame. Things got interesting in the ninth, as Charleston got to him for two runs on three hits and a walk, but that was all the damage the redshirt freshman would allow. Except for the first batter of the ninth, when he momentarily lost command, Reeser pounds the strike zone and features good velocity and a beautiful curve. He also has a great demeanor on the mound, staying calm and focused, though his emotion was clear when the final out of the game was recorded. I look forward to seeing a lot more of Kody Reeser this year and next.
- That game didn’t have a ton of offense, but I have to mention Colin Gimblet, who hit the loudest double I’ve ever seen – and heard – in person. My ears were literally ringing for two minutes.
- Gimblet, Richard Miller, and Mark Grunberg all had multi-hit games in the series. Similarly to my point earlier about the pitching, it is unfortunate that so many of the Towson hitters hot-streaks have been staggered throughout the year. Those three, along with Billy Lennox and Craig Alleyne, have been really good for weeks at a time, but seemingly never all at once.
The Watch List
Richie Palacios, SS – .322↓/.464↑/.552↓, 174 AB, 50 R, 8 HR, 16 2B, 30 RBI, 21-22 SB. Palacios only had two hits in the series, both on Sunday, but he walked five times with nary a strikeout in sight. His numbers have gone down a bit over the last two weeks, but he has stayed patient and almost never strikes out. A lot of balls have just found gloves. I have no reason to think he doesn’t have another hot streak in him before the season is over.
Dirk Masters, 2B – .258↓/.378↓/.275↓, 120 AB, 16 R, 7 RBI, 4-4 SB. The second baseman has also hit a rough streak in regards to batting average and might be pressing a little bit, as he has six strikeouts and zero walks this month. The mission for Masters going forward will be to get a little stronger, both to add a little slugging to is value and to avoid nagging injuries that have likely seen him miss games throughout the season. The one thing that has stayed steady is his excellent defense.
David Marriggi, P – 3-6, 5.00 ERA↓, 68.1 IP, 37 BB, 59 K. After throwing 100+ pitches in eight of his first ten starts this year, including six straight, Marriggi might be starting to tire a little bit. He’s allowed 14 runs in his last two starts and isn’t missing as many bats (four strikeout in each of his last five games). He should still have a couple of starts left to finish the regular season on the right note.
Michael Adams, P – 3-6, 5.78 ERA↓, 67 IP, 27 BB, 72 K. This game was an improvement over his last start, but it still wasn’t Adams at his best (7 ER in 4.2 innings). Basically everything I just wrote about Marriggi applies here. Hopefully Adams continues to right the ship in his next start.
Up Next
Towson plays today at 4 p.m. at the University of Maryland. I’ll try to bang out a preview, if not you might have to settle for a recap. Coming up this weekend, the Tigers travel to Elon for their last road series of the regular season.
