Maldonado's gem leads Baseball in MVC-opening victory

Friday, April 8

Evansville, Ind.

6:00 PM

Southern Illinois University

9-19, 1-0

Evansville

17-10, 0-1

Southern Illinois

Evansville

04/08/2011 | 12:00:00 | Baseball

Box Score

April 8, 2011

By Jason Clay
SIUSalukis.com

Box Score

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Junior pitcher Cameron Maldonado struck out eight in 8.1 innings to lead the Southern Illinois baseball team to a 5-1 victory at Evansville Friday night in the Missouri Valley Conference opener at Braun Stadium.

Maldonado took a shutout into the ninth inning and was replaced by Tyler Dray after giving up the one run. Dray came in and got Shawn Kuester to ground into the game-ending double play to record his third save of the season.

"Everything was working. I could throw my curveball off-speed for a strike, so I kept them honest," Maldonado said. "I try to approach every game the same, but conference is where you want to win all your games. You want to win every game of course, but conference is most important."

Maldonado's eight strikeouts were a career-high and the most by a Saluki since Jimmy Cornell struck out nine against Illinois State on April 25, 2009. The Saluki right-hander improves to 3-4 with his second-straight victory. The one run that he allowed in the ninth was unearned and he walked just one of the 35 batters he faced.

All of Southern's offense came in two innings. Nick Johnson hit a two-run homer in the fifth, which was his second homer in the last three games. SIU scored three in that frame and added two more in the ninth.

Southern Illinois (9-19, 1-0 MVC) finished the game with 10 hits to Evansville's (17-10, 0-1) eight. The two teams combined to strand 23 runners on base (13 by SIU, 10 by UE).

Evansville pitcher Kyle Lloyd threw 8.2 innings in the loss that dropped his record down to 2-3.

Each team stranded two runners, one in scoring position, in the first inning. Maldonado closed out the first with a pair of strikeouts when UE had runners on first and third.

Again in the third, both teams stranded runners in scoring position. Maldonado ended the frame by getting Cody Fick to ground out with a runner on third. Maldonado then came out in the fourth and struck out the side to give him six strikeouts in the first 12 outs of the game.

Evansville got a runner on third with just one out in the fifth. The Aces tried a suicide squeeze with Kuester at the plate, but his bunt went right back to Maldonado, who threw home to Dustin Huff to easily tag out Trentt Copeland to keep it a scoreless game.

Lloyd had given up just four hits through the first five innings, but SIU got to him in the sixth with three runs on three hits and an error. Johnson hit his no-doubt, two-run homer to right and Blake Pinnon, who doubled after Johnson's homer, later scored on a costly two-out infield error.

Evansville threatened once again in the seventh, getting runners on second and third with two outs. Maldonado kept his cool and got Kuester to ground out to second to keep Southern's lead at 3-0 entering the eighth.

Two more strikeouts from Maldonado got the Salukis through the eighth. SIU padded on two more runs in the ninth, one off Chris Murphy's double off the right-field wall, to take a 5-0 lead with three outs to go.

A two-base error to start the bottom of the ninth put Jared Baehl on second with no outs. After Jake Mahon singled in Baehl to take away the shutout, Maldonado was pulled for Dray, who got the game-ending double play.