Kentucky takes series over Belmont with easy 12-0 win on Saturday
After holding on to a 2-1 win in the opener, Kentucky cruised to a series win on Saturday with a 12-0 win in seven innings.
Kentucky’s offense failed to produce much on Friday night, but the pitching staff delivered a quality outing as the Wildcats defeated Belmont 2-1. On Saturday, the Wildcats were impressive both on the mound and saw their bats come alive in a 12-0 win in seven innings.
Sophomore lefty Ben Cleaver was stellar against the Bruins, striking out 11 batters on just 69 pitches. He retired 18 of the 19 batters he faced, allowing just one hit over six scoreless innings. Cleaver opened the game by retiring the first nine hitters he faced. Belmont led off the bottom of the fourth inning with a single, but Cleaver retired the next nine batters, ending his outing with six consecutive strikeouts. It was truly a fantastic outing for the sophomore who grew up not too far from Nashville.
Offensively, Kentucky racked up eight hits, including three home runs, but reached base seven times via base on balls and was hit by six pitches.
The games have not been televised this weekend, so all following observations are strictly from the box score. This comes with some downsides since there’s little context to what happened. Because of that, most of these thoughts will be brief.
McCay, Cleaver set the tone
In addition to Cleaver’s six scoreless innings, Friday night starter Nic McCay also delivered a gem in his second outing of the season. McCay allowed zero earned runs in six innings and allowed just two hits to the Bruins. He struck out six batters and allowed just one extra base hit. Belmont’s lone run came in the first inning. Leadoff hitter Pete Daniel was credited with a triple to open the game and scored on a passed ball, but it went down as an unearned run.
Senior lefthanded reliever Jackson Nove entered the game for McCay in the seventh inning. After striking out five batters over three innings last week, Nove followed up that performance by striking out six of the seven batters he faced on Friday night. Indiana State transfer Simon Gregersen closed out game one for his first save of the season. The trio combined not to walk any hitters — though three batters were hit by pitch — and gave up just two hits over nine innings.
That performance was needed on an evening when Kentucky’s bats struggled. The Wildcats hit .111 (3-27) as a team, collecting just three hits and only one extra base hit. Senior catcher Raphael Pelletier hit a sacrifice fly in the first inning to open the scoring, and senior infielder Patrick Herrera came through with the go-ahead single with two outs in the top of the sixth.
Offense comes alive in game two
It was encouraging to see Kentucky respond with a much better offensive game on Saturday. Through four games, Kentucky has an 11-0 win and a 12-0 victory with the mercy rule in effect. They’ve also been held to two runs and one run in the two other games, so it’s been up and down so far. Perhaps that’s to be expected to an extent since it’s early in the year and the weather hasn’t helped offenses for either team.
Still, Kentucky had two innings in which it scored three runs and added four runs in the seventh inning, while also adding a single run in both the second and fourth innings. Freshman shortstop Tyler Bell and senior catcher Devin Burkes each had multi-hit games, including their first home runs of the season. According to the Kentucky Baseball Twitter account, Bell’s home run traveled 431 feet.
The game entered mercy rule territory when junior outfield transfer Carson Hansen pummeled a grand slam in his first career at-bat for the Wildcats. The home run made the score 12-0 in the top of the seventh. In addition to the three homers, center fielder Will Marcy hit a triple to center field for his first hit of the season.
Kentucky went 8-20 (.320) as a team at the plate and had the leadoff runner reach base six times out of seven innings.
Quick hitters
Through two games, Kentucky’s staff has held Belmont to 4-53 (.075) at the plate. Belmont does not have a two-out hit yet in the series, going 0-16 to this point.
Lefty reliever Cole Hentschel made his first appearance for Kentucky. The transfer from Richmond gave up a hit and walked a batter, but he also recorded a strikeout and stranded the bases loaded in the seventh inning to preserve the mercy rule victory.
The lopsided score on Saturday allowed several bench players to enter the game. Sophomore Griffin Cameron, freshman Ryan Schwartz and the aforementioned Hansen each had their first plate appearances of the season. Redshirt freshman Hudson Brown entered the game as a pinch runner for Dylan Koontz. Sophomore infielder Ethan Hindle, who started a game last weekend, also got an opportunity as a pinch hitter.
Kentucky will go for the sweep tomorrow. Longwood transfer Ethan Walker is set to make his first start for the Wildcats. First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET.