UNM pitchers lead team with infallible play

Going into this weekend’s series against the Air Force Academy, the UNM baseball team could not fault the starting pitching for its seven-game losing streak. It had come up with some strong performances during that stretch, only to see them go to waste.

But it was a different story this weekend as Lobo pitchers held the Falcons to six runs during the three-game series, including a shutout by junior Jeremy DeYapp in Sunday’s 6-0 win. The shutout was the first at home since Feb. 27, 1993, when UNM defeated Texas Tech University 12-0 at Lobo Field.

“I just tried to go out there and give my best and give us a chance to win,” DeYapp said.

DeYapp has been a welcome surprise to the starting rotation, having pitched into the seventh inning in three of his last four starts. Cooper has thrown three complete games in his last five starts and pitched into the sixth inning on Friday, and Vermilyea has given up five runs in 12 innings over two starts, but only two of those runs were earned. Their work has contributed to head coach Rich Alday’s positive outlook on his starters.

“He (DeYapp) has stepped it up for us and done a good job, and James has done a good job, and Cooper’s always real consistent for us,” Alday said. “We are more concerned with our bullpen. We want to get a better outing out of our bullpen with Jeff Perez and David Young and Greg Atencio.”

Cooper started the series off with a six-inning shutout performance that was cut short due to rain on Friday. UNM completed the 8-2 win on Saturday before Vermilyea pitched seven innings and gave up three runs in UNM’s 17-3 win Saturday night.

DeYapp followed that up with a complete game five-hitter on Sunday. He disrupted the Falcon hitters timing by changing speeds and spotting his curveball on both sides of the plate. The fourth inning was his most difficult inning, when he gave up a one-out double to designated hitter Geremy Goldsberry. He recovered by striking out third baseman Brad Bashore and getting right fielder Tony Shockley to ground out to third base.

DeYapp never faced more than four batters in an inning and struck out six hitters in the last five innings.

“About the third or fourth inning, I got good command of my curveball and change-up and my confidence built up on from there every inning,” DeYapp said.

Alday said his biggest concern going into the final six games is his bullpen, which has been the team’s weak spot this year. It couldn’t hold three leads during a six-game road trip to Brigham Young University and San Diego State University.

Alday said he was pleased with David Young’s performance in the second game Saturday. Young closed the game with two scoreless innings. However, Alday said the rest of the pitchers just need to come in and throw strikes.

“We’ve hit too many batters late in the ball game when we have leads or we’ve walked too many people,” Alday said. “We’ve pitched behind in the count and so we have to go challenge because we haven’t been able to throw our off-speed pitches for strikes. Those are the things that we’ve got to do better at out of the bullpen because we don’t have guys that can throw great fastballs, so they have to be successful with those other pitches.”