On its Tuesday-afternoon home opener at Huskins Field, Tufts' baseball team was matched up with a formidable opponent: the Brandeis Judges, who had lost just one of their last eight games and rode into Medford with a 12-6-1 record on the season.
In a pitcher's duel fought between Tufts junior Carlos Lopez and Brandeis sophomore Tyler Robinson, Lopez emerged with a 2-0 win, improving his record on the season to 1-1 and bringing the Jumbos to 12-7 overall.
Lopez pitched six-and-two-thirds scoreless innings in the game, striking out four Judges, walking two, and allowing just three hits. Robinson, who also left in the seventh inning, allowed two Tufts runs on six hits in six-and-a-third innings of work.
"[Robinson] was a good pitcher," said junior left fielder Kyle Backstrom, who went two-for-three in the game and also drew a walk. "He came from the west side, and threw the ball pretty hard. He threw a lot of fastballs. He wasn't bad at all."
"It's not so much that he was a power pitcher, but he was something different, something we hadn't seen before," added junior tri-captain Bryan McDavitt, who was one-for-three, also with a walk. "He was a lefty, and he had a lot of movement on the ball. It tailed away from the guys in our lineup, which is eight righties and one lefty."
After a one-two-three inning in the first for Robinson, the heart of the Jumbos' order jumped on him in the bottom of the second. McDavitt led off the inning with a double and Backstrom followed with a walk, putting two runners on with nobody out.
Robinson calmed down and struck out back-to-back Jumbos, but a single from junior catcher Chris Decembrele scored McDavitt. Robinson then advanced both runners with a wild pitch, and walked freshman second baseman Kevin Casey to load the bases. Robinson got lucky as a fly-out to right from junior shortstop Brian Casey ended the inning with just a single Tufts run on the board.
Meanwhile, Lopez was cruising on the mound for the Jumbos. He had a no-hitter going through four innings, with the only baserunner coming on a second-inning walk to Brandeis freshman left fielder David Almeida.
"[Lopez] threw great today," McDavitt said. "He threw strikes; that was the biggest thing. And plus, he got a lot of guys to ground out, which really helped us."
Lopez's no-hitter lasted until the fifth. Junior right fielder Ben Dashefsky led off the inning by reaching on an error by Backstrom, and two batters later, the Judges had their first hit - a single by sophomore third baseman Malcolm Cone-Coleman that moved Dashefsky to third.
Lopez escaped the inning, however, and the Jumbos' 1-0 lead remained intact. Tufts widened the lead in the bottom of the inning when senior centerfielder Jim O'Leary and freshman right fielder Brian McDonough rattled off back-to-back, one-out singles. After McDavitt struck out, Backstrom lined a single, scoring O'Leary and giving the Jumbos a 2-0 lead.
Lopez ran into trouble in the seventh, as junior designated hitter Jonathan Winston led off with a walk and a later single by Cone-Coleman moved him to third. But sophomore southpaw Adam Telian came into the game to relieve Lopez, and Telian immediately picked Winston off of first base, ending the inning.
Telian pitched a perfect eighth, and sophomore Jason Protano followed with a perfect ninth, closing out the 2-0 win and earning his first save of the year.
The win was a big step in the right direction for the Jumbos, who were coming off of a three-game sweep at the hands of Bowdoin. While the win may get the Tufts squad back on track, the offense still only had two runs on seven hits, and McDavitt's double was the team's only extra-base hit.
Hopes are high, however, that the Jumbos can turn things around.
"I definitely think we can get back to hitting the ball," Backstrom said. "Baseball has a lot of ups and downs, but we definitely have the talent to get back up."
They will need to get back up in a hurry, as their opponent this weekend is Middlebury, a team that enters the week at 8-5, 4-1 in the NESCAC.
"We obviously have some work to do," McDavitt added. "We're going to have to play our best this weekend, and really start hitting the ball."
