By: Benjamin Yeargin, Brandon Murdock, & Connor Wilson
After sweeping Niagara last weekend, Quinnipiac baseball is officially halfway through its 30-game MAAC schedule. The Bobcats are 10-5 in league play, putting them tied for second with Rider and 1.5 games behind 10-2 Fairfield for first in the conference.
At the midpoint, QU Sports Page’s Benjamin Yeargin, Brandon Murdock and Connor Wilson handed out some grades to assess Quinnipiac’s performance, broken up by the different parts of the game.
Offense: A+
Offense is not the problem for Quinnipiac. The Bobcats lead the MAAC in batting average, home runs and slugging percentage in conference play.
Senior infielder CJ Willis is spearheading the sticks. The Auburn, Massachusetts native is slashing .484/.548/1.016 with eight home runs, five doubles and 34 RBIs. Head coach John Delaney has Willis batting third.
Willis is among five Bobcats who have an OPS above .900, joining sophomore infielder Kyle Garbowski, junior catcher Christian Smith, junior infielder Alex Irizarry and graduate infielder Johnny Knox. Graduate infielder Sebastian Mueller joins the above five with an on-base percentage north of .400 as well.
In seven of Quinnipiac’s 15 MAAC games, it has scored double-digit runs. The Bobcats haven’t scored less than four runs in a conference game this season.
Quinnipiac is getting starters out of games early too. In MAAC play, the longest a starter has lasted against the Bobcats was Niagara’s junior right-hander Matthew DelVecchio going 6.1 innings on April 4 in an extra-innings 7-5 Quinnipiac win.
When Quinnipiac loses, it’s not because of the offense. The bats have been blazing, which is why the Bobcats deserve an A+ for their offensive production in MAAC play.
– Yeargin
Starting pitching: C-
The starting pitching for the Quinnipiac Bobcats has been a bit of a roller coaster this season. Starting off in non-conference action, there was only one starter who went at least five innings in a start over the course of the first 11 games of the season. Nick Balcom, who went five innings against UNC Wilmington on Feb. 14, allowing two earned runs and recording four strikeouts.
Since the start of MAAC play, the rotation, bulked by freshman Sam Wright and juniors Matt Alduino and Mike Poncini, have given the team more length at the beginning of games. Each have gone at least five innings multiple times, but have yet to find consistency. None of these starters have an earned run average below five.
The rotation has been defined as Wright being the Friday starter, typically set for the team’s ace, followed by Poncini on Saturday, and Alduino on Sundays to close out the series.
Wright has been the standout for this team so far in his first year, with his best start coming on March 21st against Marist when he pitched five innings and recorded four strikeouts while only allowing two earned runs.
Despite that game, Wright still holds a 5.29 ERA, followed by Alduino at 6.85, and Poncini at 7.88.
It’s clear that the offense for this team will just about always produce, the pitching needs to keep up and that begins with the starters.
The team currently sits at seventh in the conference in pitching with a 7.24 team ERA and a lot of that has come from the starters.
The length that the starters have been able to give since the start of conference play and the emergence of Wright are the only things keeping the starting pitching from a lower grade.
– Murdock
Relief pitching: B-
The bullpen has been a little more consistent, but definitely has some room for improvement in the back half of the MAAC schedule. In conference play, the Bobcats have four primary relievers with an ERA under 4.50, but also have three primary relievers with ERAs north of 8.00.
Starting with the good, junior Andrew Rubayo has a team low 3.60 ERA in conference play (not counting infielder Johnny Knox’s scoreless outing). Rubayo allowed just one earned run in his first nine innings in MAAC play, but has struggled a bit in his past two outings giving up five runs in seven innings. Senior Ryan Hutchison had a rough day on March 16 against Rider when he allowed five runs in 1.2 innings, but besides that hasn’t allowed a run in any of his outings all season.
Balcom has made four of his five MAAC appearances out of the bullpen. He had his best outing of the year on March 14 when he pitched five scoreless innings on the road against Rider. The final reliever with a solid ERA, first year JC Franconere, allowed just two runs in his first nine innings before allowing four in 3.1 in his last inning.
Then there’s the bad.
Graduate student Jack Kabel has been solid overall this season, but has allowed four runs in 4.1 innings to the tune of an 8.31 ERA in league play. First year Griffin Seibel has allowed multiple runs in three of his four outings including five on March 14 against Rider. Finally, graduate student Ryan O’Connell allowed five runs without recording an out on April 4 against Niagara which ballooned his MAAC ERA to 16.20.
For the most part, the positives outweigh the negatives in the Quinnipiac bullpen. Most of the pitchers who have struggled in conference play have had one bad outing inflate their stats, while the arms who have been solid have strung together multiple good outings in a row. If you’re Delaney, you’d like to have as many relief pitchers as possible to rely on in big situations, so cleaning some things up in the back end will be crucial for the second half of MAAC play.
– Wilson
Defense: B-
To consistently win ball games, you need all three facets of the game to be working in tandem. Thankfully for the Bobcats, the defense hasn’t been that big of an issue. But it hasn’t been that great either.
Their 18 errors is eighth in the MAAC, not unbearable but not good enough to be an elite defensive team. Quinnipiac has turned 10 double plays, which both indicates that the Bobcat pitchers force grounders and the middle infield pair of Knox and Irizarry can twist it.
But in the same breath, both Knox and Irizarry have some errors. Knox leads the squad with four and Irizarry is tied for third with two.
Behind the plate, Smith and redshirt freshman catcher Cole Constable have been good. They’ve allowed one and two past balls, respectively. In throwing out runners, Smith hasn’t gunned one runner down this year. Constable has caught three runners stealing and a smattering of pitchers have the other four caught stealing attempts.
Quinnipiac needs to improve its defense — mainly in limiting errors on ground balls — to continue its MAAC success.
– Yeargin
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