James Madison Falls 5-4 As Mistakes Undue Them In Conference Loss At Georgia State

James Madison baseball looked like a bunch of Little Leaguers in their 5-4 Loss Sunday at Georgia State. The Panthers from Georgia State scored four unearned runs to win the conference game and complete the sweep of the Dukes. Wild pitches and errors were marring the loss. The Dukes fell to 6-9 in the Sun Belt Conference. They are 16-18 overall. The Panthers improved to 7-8 in the conference, and they are no longer in last place. They are 18-19 overall.

This Sunday game was a clinic in how not to play baseball. JMU had a chance to win the game, but just made too many mistakes. One of the few things that was good about the loss was that four of the five runs scored by Georgia State were unearned. Do you think James Madison will bounce back?

James Madison and Georgia State April 12 Game Summary

There was not a great deal to this game. James Madison scored first, taking a 3-0 lead. Georgia State came back to take a 4-3 lead when they scored an earned run in the sixth inning, and three unearned runs in the seventh inning.

Those runs resulted from an error and two wild pitches. The teams traded runs in the eighth inning. Wyatt Campbell scored for James Madison on a passed ball. In the bottom of the inning, Cooper Milford scored when a ball was hit into the field, and an error was made on it.

Miscues In Baseball

Errors in the field are going to happen because fielding a baseball is something imperfect human beings try to do. James Madison made errors in the seventh and eighth innings. Both resulted in runs. They also threw three wild pitches, and two of them, both in the seventh inning, resulted in runs. Two runs scored for Georgia State in that costly seventh inning, where three unearned runs scored.

Babe Ruth is dead; throw strikes. This is the task for pitchers. Pitches that cannot be caught by the catcher are not acceptable. In a little-known fact, most of the bases given up by teams are given up because of wild pitches and passed balls.

In another little-known fact, they call it baseball because the object of the game is to accrue bases while preventing your opponent from doing so. Most people think the object of the game is to score more runs than your opponent, but this is wrong, as was demonstrated in this game.

Speedy and Potent

In this game, it was not all bad for James Madison. First, Kyle Langley, Clay Thompson, and Cameron Aycock each had two hits. For the game, the Dukes had only seven hits, and six of them were theirs. Thompson also stole one of the three bases the Dukes stole. With that stolen base, he joined Reece Moody with 20 steals. They became the first JMU pair with 20 stolen bases since the 2011 season.

Strong Pitching Performance

The Dukes also benefited from getting a strong pitching performance. Tyler Lutz started the game, and he pitched 5.2 innings. He gave up one run, which was earned, and he walked four batters. He only gave up two hits, and he struck out six batters. He threw one wild pitch in the 89 pitches he threw.

JMU then proceeded to use four other pitchers, and none of them gave up any unearned runs. Griffin Madden was the pitcher when Georgia State scored its three unearned runs. He threw two wild pitches in that faithful seventh inning. Madison now heads back to Virginia to play at The University of Richmond, Tuesday at 6 p.m.