Jayhawks drop second straight, chance to even the series
Kansas baseball fell 10–3 to Minnesota on Saturday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium, as a six-run third inning by the Gophers broke the game open. Cade Baldridge gave the Jayhawks an early 1–0 lead with an RBI single in the first, but Minnesota responded with an unearned run in the bottom half before breaking the game open in the third, highlighted by a grand slam from Ty Allen.
Kansas trimmed the deficit to 7–3 in the fifth after three straight hits, including an RBI double from Dylan Schlotterback and a sacrifice fly by Dariel Osoria. However, Minnesota added a solo home run in the sixth and two more runs in the seventh to seal the win, dropping Kansas to 6–4 on the season.
“We need to play cleaner baseball,” said Kansas head coach Dan Fitzgerald. “We can’t give up six-run innings and then not produce in the middle of our lineup and expect to win at a high level against good teams like Minnesota. We have to play our style of baseball. We need to take care of the baseball and get back to what we do well.”
Friday night proved costly early
The Jayhawks suffered their first loss of the series on Friday night as the Gophers built an early lead that proved too much to overcome. Minnesota struck for a solo home run in the first inning and then broke the game open with six runs in the third, highlighted by a three-run homer. Four more runs in the fourth stretched the deficit to 11–0 before Kansas could settle in.
The Jayhawks began chipping away in the fifth when Tyson LeBlanc hit a solo home run, and Cade Baldridge added an RBI double in the sixth. Jordan Bach drove in another run in the seventh, and Tyson Owens capped the scoring with a two-run homer in the ninth. Kansas received scoreless relief outings from Maddox Burkitt, Emerson McKnight and sophomore Daniel Lopez, who threw 2.2 hitless innings and struck out five.
[KU wins opener against Minnesota]
“Well, we played great from the fifth inning on,” Fitzgerald said. “Burkitt came on and pitched well, then McKnight was great, (Aiden) Cline got himself in trouble, but Lopez did an awesome job. We blew it on the front end and made some uncharacteristic mistakes defensively. There are going to be games like this. We lose one like this and we’re certainly going to win one like this at some point too.”
The Jayhawks will get a chance to even the series today at 1 p.m. The game will be televised on Big 10 Plus.
