UK suffers late-game collapse in home loss: Errors, bullpen doom Cats against Lipscomb

On an unusual night for baseball, unusual things are bound to happen. With the thermometer hovering around 40 degrees — a temperature more suited for Commonwealth Stadium than for Cliff Hagan — UK looked to be in position to soundly defeat Lipscomb.

Then the unusual happened.

Lipscomb plated five runs in the top of the ninth — all of which were unearned thanks to two errors, two walks, two wild pitches and a passed ball — and the Bisons won, 8-7.

The Bisons (16-24, 10-8 Atlantic Sun) entered the seventh inning down 6-0. After a three-run seventh and a few scoreless half-innings, Lipscomb was down to its final two outs with a three-run deficit.

After getting catcher Logan Hostettler to ground out, UK reliever Tyler Henry loaded the bases with one out. Sophomore reliever Logan Darnell took over and threw consecutive wild pitches — all runners advanced on the first, plating a run. The batter, Allen Bolden, was walked, loading the bases again. UK (21-18, 6-12 Southeastern Conference) still clung to a two-run lead, 6-4.

Sanders drove in the fifth run on an infield single — UK shortstop Chris Wade fielded the ball off his back foot and had no play across the field — and Lipscomb tied it up on a passed ball.

The Bisons broke the tie with third baseman Andrew Nickerson at the plate. Nickerson hit a grounder to UK second baseman Andy Burns, who couldn’t pick the ball out of the wet dirt. Two runners plated on the error, the Cats’ third on the night.

“Clearly, walks and errors allowed us to give the game away in the ninth,” UK head coach Gary Henderson said. “Clearly, we weren’t playing with much confidence at the end there. Hopefully it’ll get better, it was pretty obvious tonight with a lot of freshmen out there. We played pretty tentative there in the ninth, which is disappointing considering how well we played early on.”

The Cats posted one run in the bottom half of the ninth but fell one short of ultimately thwarting Lipscomb’s comeback.

Tuesday’s game marked the Cats’ first loss of the season after holding the lead going into the ninth inning. The Cats are now 16-1 on the year in that category.

The Cats took an early lead, gaining the upper hand in the second inning on a two-run home run to left field off the bat of freshman catcher Michael Williams.

Starting lefty Mike Kaczmarek seemed in line to earn his second win of the season, weaving in and out of trouble in six-plus innings of work. In the sixth inning, Kaczmarek recorded two quick outs before walking  Bolden and hitting clean-up hitter Justin Sanders with a pitch. With two on and two out, Kaczmarek faced Braden Cadavid, who had recorded two hits in his previous two at-bats. Cadavid struck out swinging.

“I was just overthinking, getting outside what I needed to do,” Kaczmarek said. “I just gained my focus, relaxed a little bit and managed to get out of there.”

While Kaczmarek got out of trouble, his relievers did not. Darnell — who ultimately picked up the loss — inherited an ugly situation and recorded just one out, giving up two runs (both unearned). He left behind an equally-as-ugly situation for Clint Tilford, the man who picked up where he left off.

“Well, I just couldn’t find the strike zone that well. I lost rhythm and I was just having trouble thinking. I was overthinking,” said Darnell, the second pitcher to use that dubious phrase on the night. “I was proud of how Kaczmarek threw, and that made it that much harder on me to give it away.”

After the game, Henderson, with a scratchy voice, made sure to applaud his team’s offensive effort. Eleven hits, he said, kept the Cats in the game, but the errors and unearned runs doomed them to their 18th loss of the season.

It was just an unusual night at Cliff Hagan, Henderson said.

“We’ll get back out there and hopefully play much better. We played pretty good for seven innings, but it’s a nine-inning game,” Henderson said. “We just absolutely gave the game away.”