The Green Wave did everything wrong in the final frame en route to an extra-innings loss to the Rice Owls on Saturday. L
A massively disappointing season on the diamond has come to an end for the Tulane Green Wave.
The team finished with a disheartening 25-31 overall record and as the worst team in the American Conference at 10-17 in league play. Pitching was largely inconsistent, offense relied too heavily on a handful of hot bats and fielding was error-prone. Let's just say, the final inning of the team's 6-5 extra-innings loss to the Rice Owls on Saturday certainly exemplified everything that the season has stood for.
Let's start with the top of the 11th inning in a game that was essentially meaningless, but would've still been good for the Sluggerbirds to win simply for a shred of pride.
The offense turned away from everything that had worked throughout the game in what can only be described as a head-scratching short stretch of panic at the dish. Truly, three consecutive groundouts to the left side of the infield by Kaikea Harrison, Jack Johnson and Evan Burg were frustrating enough, but it's the fact that it only took Rice five pitches to get out of the frame that was mind-boggling. Rather than be patient at the plate, all three batters unleashed wildly on the first and second pitches of their at-bats. Any sense of discipline was gone.
If that didn't suck much of the life out of the program, then the bottom of the frame certainly did.
Tulane committed its fifth error of the day on an errant throw and allowed the leadoff man to reach base. A single in the next at-bat would put runners on the corners -- and the winning run in scoring position -- with no outs.
This is where a bit of questionable decision-making by head coach Jay Uhlman comes in. The Green Wave elected to intentionally walk the next man in the lineup -- one who was 0-for-5 on the day with two strikeouts -- to load the bases with no outs.
What were they thinking?
It's not uncommon to see teams intentionally walk batters to attempt to force a double play. However, with no outs in the inning and the game-winning run just 90 feet away, not even a double play would've helped Tulane out of the inning entirely. The best they could hope for would be to get the leading man out heading to home, but that looked highly unlikely -- not only would the ball have needed to be hit to a very specific spot in the infield, defense also hasn't been the team's strong suit. It felt like Uhlman and the Sluggerbirds were essentially conceding the contest.
Did it matter in the end? No, because a sacrifice fly was easily enough to score the runner from third. Honestly, it probably wouldn't have mattered either way. But it might've made just a little more sense to give your pitcher a chance with a batter who was struggling so heavily before looking to get a double-play with one out on the board.
Of course, that's all irrelevant now. Tulane now must look to the future and try to find a way to rebuild heading into next season. What was once a proud program had an incredibly low season, and it's easy to imagine that fans aren't going to be willing to tolerate it for much longer.
