The Virginia Tech Hokies baseball team wins their home opener against the Rhode Island Rams.

The Hokies took the field with a modest crowd building and the sun quickly dropping into evening. Brett Renfrow took the mound and warmed up nicely enough. And then… baseball happened.

All of that throwing fire and no hits thing from his first game at Charlotte faded with the first batter who walked. Lead-off walks are always a problem. Renfrow ran into some issues with early control, and for some reason Rhode Island was finding holes for fairly mundane shots. Eventually, with no outs the Rams had the bags loaded and two pitching coach visits to the mound started the crowd itching.

Baseball Is Self-Assured at All Times

But this is baseball, and Mr. Renfrow, as a young man, was learning to live with the old sine curve of excellence. It was going to be a battle to get out of the inning with as little damage as possible. Sometimes, it takes more guts to do that than to just walk up there and blow people off the plate. Perhaps in this instance, it requires guts for the fans as well as the pitcher. Renfrow pitched with intensity, and his teammates supported him. With all bases loaded and nobody out, Rhode Island managed just one run in the inning. That undoubtedly deserves a spot in his marble bag.

The Hokies would pick Brett Renfrow up big time in the bottom of the inning, batting around, and pushing 6 runs across the plate by the end of the inning. It even gave the crowd the thrill of watching the big hammer coming out for a Henry Cooke home run.

That scoring burst helped settle things down just a bit, but Rhode Island would still come back to make Renfrow’s second a 2-run hold, including a wild pitch that made things harder on himself.

Baseball Is Self-Assured at All Times

But this is baseball, and Mr. Renfrow, as a young man, was learning to live with the old sine curve of excellence. It was going to be a battle to get out of the inning with as little damage as possible. Sometimes, it takes more guts to do that than to just walk up there and blow people off the plate. Perhaps in this instance, it requires guts for the fans as well as the pitcher. Renfrow pitched with intensity, and his teammates supported him. With all bases loaded and nobody out, Rhode Island managed just one run in the inning. That undoubtedly deserves a spot in his marble bag.

The larger truth is that even with a 5-run advantage, the team still needed to rally since this is not a sport for individuals. Both teams may have scored a lot of runs in this contest, so Tech needed to do something noteworthy in each of their half-inning sets. If nothing else, just to give Renfrow a chance to regain his flow.

Both teams had a goose egg in the third inning, but more significantly, Renfrow appeared to regain his stroke. He had improved his control over pitch placement and was pitching to contact while keeping the ball low in the zone. The outcome was a rapid top half of the third, and he hung zeros for his final two frames on the bump.

The Coach Emptied the Bench After the Stretch

After the 5th, Reliver Grant Manning stepped on the mound and shut out the Rams for two relatively quiet innings. They would make it on base but it all ended up inconsequential. As the bottom of the 7th arrived with “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” sounded, Coach Szefc pretty much replaced his lineup card, and even with the backups the Hokies managed to plate two runs. The rain started to pick up from some wandering clouds as the bright full moon shined through breaks. The ballpark started to empty as it became pretty obvious that the contest was over.

Junior Reliever Jordan Little made quick work of Rhode Island and closed out the top of the 8th with a big fat Zero. With a 17-3 score it was relatively easy for him to relax and make good pitches. Instead of keeping Little in the game, the coaching staff decided to give Freshman Ryan Buckler the chance to close the door. He started the lead-off batter with two solid strikes, but then threw a ball, and then missed worse by hitting the batter. You know the reality of lead-off runners and all of that. But eventually he buckled down with 2 men on base, got his feet underneath him and struck out the side.

The Hokies pulled down a solid win and a good start to the series that stopped a short 2 game skid. Brett Renfrow had a rough inning and a half, but pulled himself out of it and managed to limit the damage when he was pressed. He then recovered and hung up 3 scoreless innings. Grant Manning pitched 2 innings of shutout baseball. Jordan Little put up a scoreless 8th, and Freshman Ryan Buckler had a nervous start, hit a batter had a runner in scoring position, and then promptly struck out all three of the next batters.

The Final Score..