Kentucky Baseball falters late against WKU for first loss of season

Kentucky Baseball really likes making it tough on their fans, huh? After seven straight victories to begin the year, including walk-offs in three of the past four, the UK bullpen couldn’t preserve a quality start from Seth Logue as the ‘Cats lost its first game of the season 7-5 to Western Kentucky.

Logue continues stellar start as bullpen lapses

“It’s been really good, I’m just trying to get my feet wet a little bit and get comfortable,” Logue said about his first few successful starts this season. “I just try and make it as smooth as possible in my head, not put too much pressure on myself. It’s just a normal baseball game for me.”

Seth Logue was not talked about at all this offseason when it came to potential starters in this year’s rotation. We’re beginning to learn that it might’ve been a mistake not to mention the sophomore from Mason, Ohio.

Logue got the shock start last Wednesday against Bellarmine and decently surprised us all with his performance. The righty was used exclusively out of the bullpen and finished the year with a 6.43 ERA in 14 innings of action last year. You didn’t look at him as a starter, and the numbers sure didn’t back it up either. This year though, we’re seeing Logue dazzle so far in his first taste as a starter.

This afternoon, Logue looked exceptional for the most part — aside from being plagued against the long ball a couple of times. His numbers on initial glance were worse than his first start, but the eye test would show you a different story. A few bad pitches and a few barreled balls can really shift the perception of someone’s performance.

After retiring the side in the first inning, Logue slipped up in the next frame. He allowed a leadoff double, eventually leading to a two-run home run off the bat of Justin Carlin that flew past the left-field fence, giving Western Kentucky a 2-0 lead at the time. His final run came by way of the long ball as well. Logue allowed a solo shot to Jackson Gray with two outs in the fourth.

“He makes a couple of different pitches there and he has a shutout,” Nick Mingione said about Logue after the game. “He pitched awesome, he gave us a chance to win that game. He made big pitch after big pitch… I thought he was phenomenal.”

In all, Seth Logue finished with three earned runs over six innings. He struck out a career-high nine and only allowed one walk. Another impressive performance for the budding starter.

When he left, things began to break apart at the seam. Zack Lee entered the game riding an incredibly hot start to the season. Through two relief appearances before today, Lee had thrown 4.1 innings of one-hit ball, not allowing a run. He seemingly imploded today when he entered in the seventh with a one-run lead. The junior lasted one inning, allowing three hits and two runs. It could, and probably is, just an anomaly. But it wasn’t great to see him come in and give up the lead that easily.

In the same vein, Austin Strickland faltered after his hot start to the year. The sophomore reliever shut down the eighth inning before allowing a couple of hits and runs in the top of the ninth, giving Western their winning runs.

Offense nearly does enough to keep streak alive

It’s not 43 runs over three games good, but the Wildcat offense did just enough today to warrant grabbing another win. A game where you have to grind out runs over multiple innings may even be more indicative of a good offense. Ripping bombs and running a ferris wheel around the bases is more than impressive, for sure. It’s also really important to see that the team can choke up and work through adversity throughout the game. We’ve seen that so often this season from Kentucky as of now, so it should be no surprise that it happened again today for the most part.

“I felt like we had them on the ropes. We’ve been getting the big hit and we didn’t tonight. We had our chances, we had multiple times where we had guys in scoring position but we didn’t get the hit,” Mingione added.

After falling down 2-0 after the second, Kentucky kicked off four straight innings of putting up runs. Things kicked off in the second for the Wildcats, when Western Kentucky was simply attempting to let them score. A fielding error by the Hilltopper third basemen allowed Adam Fogel to leadoff on first base. Two wild pitches later, Fogel was on third. Alonzo Rubalcaba proceeded to line a single in between the first and second basemen, giving the Cats their first run of the contest.

Chase Estep tied the game up for the time being in the following inning, launching a shot to right-center for a solo home run. The blast was Estep’s third home run on the young season, tying him with Jake Plastiak for the team lead.

In the third, more follies from Western Kentucky allowed another run to come in for the Wildcats. A successful hit-and-run gave Kentucky men on first and third with no outs. In one of the great mysteries that has a stranglehold on this beautiful sport, the Hilltopper pitcher started trying to pick off the man on first repeatedly. As expected, one of those pickoff attempts went wild, allowing Daniel Harris to walk home.

After losing the lead in the top of the seventh, Kentucky responded in a pretty fitting way for this game. With Hunter Jump on third base and two outs on the board, the Western Kentucky pitcher spiked a ball in the dirt, allowing the Arizona St. transfer to slide home and tie the game up at five. A left-field single from WKU in the top of the ninth would drive in two more runs to give us our final score of 7-5 in favor of the Hilltoppers.

Kentucky looks to get back in the win column on Wednesday when Evansville comes to Kentucky Proud Park for their last warm-up before TCU this weekend. First pitch is set for 4 p.m. EST and is set to be broadcasted on the SEC Network+.