PISCATAWAY, N.J. – In a tightly-contested Friday series opener, Rutgers baseball topped Nebraska, 4-2, at Bainton Field behind timely hitting and eight-plus innings on the mound from senior
John O'Reilly. The Scarlet Knights earned their 20
th victory of the season and evened out to 5-5 in the Big Ten.Â
O'Reilly (5-1) worked into the ninth inning and surrendered just five hits and two earned runs to win for the fifth time in seven starts. The right-hander left six on base and held the Cornhuskers (16-20, 3-8) to 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. In addition, he is now 3-0 in three starts at Bainton Field in 2018 with just two earned permitted over 23 innings (0.78 ERA). Junior
Serafino Brito followed up and induced a double play and rung up a strikeout to pick up his fifth save of the season.
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Offensively, senior
Kyle Walker reached base three times, including delivering a go-ahead RBI double. Redshirt freshman
Dan DiGeorgio smacked his first career home run, while junior
Luke Bowerbank had a two-out RBI single and sophomore
Kevin Welsh executed a safety squeeze to account for the production.
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Nebraska struck first with a run on a fielder's choice in the top of the second, but DiGeorgio quickly answered in the bottom half with a towering shot to left field for a homer. Then in the fourth, Walker drew ball four, stole second with two outs and came home on an RBI single from Bowerbank. That was matched in the top of the fifth when Scott Schreiber connected for a solo homer to knot the game up at two.
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O'Reilly settled in with a five-pitch sixth inning and RU (20-14, 5-5) jumped ahead again after that. Junior
Carmen Sclafani took a fastball off the arm and advanced on a sacrifice bunt by DiGeorgio, his 10
th of the season. Next up, Walker fell behind two strikes before driving a double down the left field line that proved to be the difference. He is now hitting .333 with a .457 on-base percentage.
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The Cornhuskers threatened with a runner at third and two outs in the seventh with Schreiber at the plate. O'Reilly was able to induce soft contact and Welsh made an off-balance throw after ranging up the middle to end the inning. In the eighth, O'Reilly forced a double play and junior
Jawuan Harris ran down a ball at the right-center wall to end the inning.
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That led to an insurance tally in the last of the eighth. Sclafani took a walk and moved to third with one out via a single on a hit-and-run by Walker. Welsh then laid down a bunt towards the first base line, as Sclafani was able to slide in safely before the tag on the squeeze.
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O'Reilly permitted a walk to open the ninth, but Brito came in to collect three outs against two hitters to close it out. Luis Alvarado (2-5) took the loss for the visitors with three earned runs allowed over 5.2 innings.
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Game two of the series is set for 1 p.m. on Saturday. Freshman
Harry Rutkowski will start for RU and BTN Plus will have a full broadcast.
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NOTES
Rutgers reached 20 win in 34 games, the quickest since doing it in 33 in 2010 … the Scarlet Knights turned a season-high three double plays and now has 30 on the season … the last time the defense spun three twin killings in a game was March 21, 2017 versus Rider … RU has 29 stolen bases in its last 10 games … O'Reilly is now second in program history with 45 career starts … the Scarlet Knights now have 76 RBIs this year with two outs compared to 64 by opponents … Rutgers has won seven of its last eight series openers ... the team has held opponents to two or less runs in a game eight times this year after doing that four times in all of 2017 … RU improved to 2-8 all-time versus Nebraska … the game-time temperature was 51 degrees … the contest lasted two hours, 40 minutes in front of a crowd of 283.
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