Baseball routs Maine in midweek matchup

By+Hannah+Stone

By Hannah Stone

Cody Estremera, Sports Editor

Alabama baseball’s offense was on full display in its 16-0 Tuesday night win against Maine.

The offense started in the second inning for Alabama. Freshman TJ Reeves’ walk was followed by a single by freshman Drew Williamson. Both advanced by stealing the next base.

After a walk, Kolby Robinson flew out to center, bringing in the first run of the game. Joe Breaux brought in the remaining runners with a triple that one-hopped the center-field fence.

In the following inning, second baseman Morgan McCullough starting the inning with his first home run of the season. Tyler Gentry followed with a double to left field. After a flyout, Reeves came up to bat.

He took the 1-1 fastball to dead-center field, which one-hopped the wall in center field for an inside-the-park home run.

“I saw that the ball kept carrying and figured he [the center fielder] wasn’t going to catch it, so I started running harder around second,” Reeves said. “I saw coach [Zulli] rolling me around third, and I just went with it.”

It was the first inside-the-park for Alabama since April 12, 2015, while it was Reeves’ first inside-the-park since the first round of the playoffs his junior year.

Alabama proceeded to score runs from the fourth inning till the eighth, for 10 of the FINAL runs. The nine runs included a solo home run by Tyler Gentry, a two-run single by Breaux and a Johnny Hawk double.

Breaux finished 2-for-4 with four RBIs, while playing five innings. Overall, five players finished with multiple hits. Williamson and Gentry each finished with a trio of hits.

After allowing 12 runs to then No. 7 Ole Miss on Sunday, Alabama’s pitching staff spread out FINAL hits across nine innings.

Tyler Ras started earning his first colligate win. He went five innings and allowed three hits, while striking out five.

“It was just a good start to the game,” Ras said. “The offense came out early and gave me a chance to settle in…. It just makes the game a lot easier. I get to settle down a little bit, and that’s what I did when we took the lead.”

Overall, Alabama used four pitchers after Ras, each throwing an inning. Brock Guffey and Deacon Medders struck out three of the four batters they faced.

“We’ve pitched really well a lot this year, and I have a lot of confidence in our pitching staff,” coach Brad Bohannon said. “We’ll have another bad day. We’ll have another game where we give up some crooked numbers and some big numbers. That’s college baseball, but pitching and defense I expect to be good throughout the year.”

The win was the fourth shutout for the Crimson Tide this year.

Alabama is back in action on Friday when it hosts its first SEC series of the year. First pitch against Arkansas is set for 6 p.m.