Last weekend the Emporia State baseball team lost its first series of the conference season, dropping three of four at Missouri Southern.
The Hornets had not even split a series all conference season and headed to Southern with a 12-game winning streak and winners of 19 out of their last 20.
So what happened to what appeared to the MIAA’s best team?
Days of research by The Gazette turned up a late-April curse. Last year, the Hornets had their 35-game winning streak snapped on the same April weekend by Central Missouri.
I brought this golden nugget of info to ESU coach Bob Fornelli expecting a thank-you for figuring out what went wrong with his baseball team. When asked if he thought the late-April curse could have been the cause, his response puzzled me.
“No, not really, to be honest with you.”
Fornelli had another theory for his team’s struggles, which made a little more sense for those who don’t believe in Baseball Gods and Demons.
“One thing we went through this weekend that I haven’t done in my 18 years was have a bye weekend the week before,” Fornelli said. “ ... I think momentum, we were just off a little bit. I think our pitchers hadn’t thrown to hitters and our clock was a little different and it definitely showed.”
The Hornets had not played a conference game in 11 days, and their only action in between was a 15-3 laugher against Sterling College.
This theory made much more sense and I’d seen it before.
In 2007, I witnessed the Colorado Rockies go on one of the greatest runs in Major League Baseball history. The Rockies won 21 out of 22 games to sneak into the playoffs and then onto the World Series. The Colorado offense was hot — hitting 30 homers during that stretch — and the pitching was even better with a 2.80 ERA.
But then the Rockies had to sit and wait for nine days for the World Series against the Boston Red Sox. Boston won the first game 13-1 and the Rockies never found their rhythm again, losing in four games.
That Rockies team had a great offense all season, but it was the team’s pitching that got hot and carried them to the great run and then fell apart after a long layoff. For Emporia State, it was also the pitching that led to the 19-of-20 streak and then the demise at Southern.
In those 19 wins, ESU pitchers gave up more than five runs only four times. In the three losses at Southern last weekend, the Lions scored 34 runs.
This year’s squad is the top-scoring team in the MIAA, but it still does not compare to the 2008 team’s offensive output and needs at least some quality pitching to thrive.
“Our pitching and defense is better than it was last year, but this weekend it wasn’t,” Fornelli said. “Our pitching defintely wasn’t. Overall, for us to be successful the rest of this year, we have to pitch and we have to play defense.
“By pitching well, it doesn’t necessarily mean we have to throw nine zeros, but we have to work ahead of people and give our team an opportunity. Every guy that got up we got behind... and my fat butt can get up there and still hit it at that.”
The Hornets have had to wait until Friday to get back on track with a regular-season ending series against Southwest Baptist that could be delayed because of the rain.
The Hornets better do their best anti-rain dance this weekend, because they do not need another long layoff. Last year’s team never quite recovered from losing three of four at Central Missouri and ended up losing again to the Mules in the conference tournament and the regional tournament.
But, as Fornelli points out, this team is different. This team is built on pitching and defense, and that’s what wins in the postseason. ESU ace Ryan Anthony got shelled in the opener at Southern, giving up six runs in three innings.
Fornelli said Anthony was still good enough that five scouts called about him after the series. The Hornets have the talent on the mound to make a run. But they need to prove this weekend that the Southern series was a long wait-induced fluke if they want to make it deeper into the postseason this year.