Walks and a rough night at the plate led to Kentucky baseball (15-8, 2-4 SEC) falling 9-3 to Xavier (12-13).
Kentucky Head Coach Nick Mingione has become known as an RPI guru in recent years as he’s built the midweek schedules to boost RPI and it’s worked to perfection. However, 2025 has proved to be the opposite as the Bat Cats have now dropped back-to-back midweek games.
In 2024, the Wildcats were 8-1 in midweek contests and in 2023 they were 10-1.
With the loss, the Wildcats dropped to 4-2 in midweek games this season and much like last week the offense went silent and the pitching faltered.
“Well last week we lost a one-run game, we had our chances, and we lost this one,” Mingione said. “I am not ready to say we are blowing all our midweek games.”
The early innings began as a pitchers’ duel between Nate Harris and Logan Schmidt as the hurlers held offenses scoreless through three innings.
Harris had worked out of a few jams in those early innings, but his luck ran out in the fourth.
The right-hander walked the leadoff batter but got two outs. Nolan Tucker launched a home run over the right field wall to give Xavier a 2-0 lead.
The Musketeers continued to hit Harris in the fifth as he surrendered a leadoff triple. The righty got one out before another runner reached on a throwing error.
A grounder that had the possibility of being a double play only turned out to only be one out, which resulted in a run. Harris hit a batter and then a double brought home two more runs for Xavier.
A pitching carousel began in the sixth as Robert Hogan did not record an out before allowing two runners to reach. Hayden Smith came on and got one out before walking the bases loaded.
James McCoy came on and gave up a grounder that brought home a run but worked out of the inning to avoid any further damage.
The Wildcats showed some signs of life at the plate in the sixth when they loaded the base and Luke Lawrence brought home two runs on a single.
Ethan Hindle drew a walk to load the bases with one-out, but Patrick Herrera struck out and Shaun Montoya fouled out end the inning.
The Wildcats gave up three runs in the top of the ninth on a double and sacrifice fly that extended Xavier’s to 9-2 lead.
Lawrence hit a double to bring home the final run of the game.
Overall, Kentucky sent nine pitchers to the mound and those arms surrendered nine walks and hit two batters.
On offense, the Wildcats were 7-32 at the plate, which is good for a .219 average.
“We just need to execute better,” Mingione said. “When we do, we get the results we want and when you don’t, that’s the results you get.”
The Wildcats have five more midweek games on the schedule, including a home-and-home series with No. 18 Louisville, a road clash with Western Kentucky and home games against Miami (OH) and Northern Kentucky.
Kentucky returns to action on Friday, March 28, when it will travel to College Station, Texas for a three-game set with Texas A&M. First pitch of game one is set for 7 p.m. ET.
