Let me preface all this by saying that you can’t get too up or too down after taking two of three against the Maryland Terrapins. Is this a great win when it comes to RPI and strengthening the resume? You bet it is, but we’re only three weeks into the season and it wasn’t pretty by any means.
Now, I’m going to give you a little more of a level-headed take when it comes to getting the win over a team like the Terps. Look at a good chunk of the Cajuns games early this season and there were some tough late-inning losses sprinkled in there. This weekend was the inverse, especially when you put the microscope on Saturday when they swept both games with a pair of walk-offs. I’ll give some credit to our guy Dave Schultz for this statistic, here’s the bullpen #’s against Maryland: 14.2IP, 10H, 1R, 0ER, 0BB, 15K. This is exactly what you want to see from a Cajuns team that had been hit or miss early on this season. If they can keep it going, I like this team’s chances of winning some crucial series in conference play.
All this being said, the Cajuns need to do a lot more than just have a solid bullpen if they want to really make waves in conference play and more importantly make a deep run in the conference tournament. 1-of-28 with runners in scoring position during a doubleheader is absolutely poor. Imagine if those were the numbers that LSU had and how much the phone lines here would be blowing up. Winning two of three against Maryland is a step in the right direction more because of how things had gone for the Cajuns as of late rather than looking like a completely different team.
With one more weekend series against Loyola Marymount before conference play, the Cajuns have every chance to get those bats to wake up out of that proverbial slumber and get ready before the games really start to matter.