Bulls suffer offensive woes in rain-soaked loss to Bona

After playing the first 30 games of this season on the road, the UB baseball team opened up the home portion of its schedule with a 6-1 loss in a rain-shortened game to St. Bonaventure on Wednesday afternoon.

With the non-league loss, the Bulls moved to 11-20 overall and 1-6 Mid-American Conference. The Bonnies improved their record to 18-17 overall and 4-9 Atlantic 10.

The first game was called in the top of the seventh inning, and the second game of the scheduled doubleheader was cancelled, with no plans of make-up game scheduled.

Matt Francavillo was the starting pitcher for the Bulls, pitching six full innings in the loss. He allowed eight hits, gave up four walks and four earned runs in addition to striking out six Bonnies.

"I thought (Francavillo's performance) was adequate enough to keep us in the game to win," said Bulls' head coach Bill Breene.

The Bulls' two unearned runs came in the sixth inning, when an infield error with two outs allowed the last two St. Bonaventure runs to score.

"I think (Francavillo) was pitching really well prior to the error we made when they scored two additional runs on the groundball to second that would've ended the inning," said Breene.

Though he did give up the two unearned runs, Breene believes that Francavillo could have pitched a little better on Wednesday.

"I don't think he was the sharpest, control-wise, he walked four batters," said Breene. "But he minimized the damage with that, so overall, I thought he threw well enough so that if we were hitting the ball like we were capable of, we could have won."

The Bulls' offense continues to struggle, particularly in producing timely hits. Buffalo has averaged over six hits per game in its last seven games, but the Bulls have not been able to drive in as many runs.

During the Bulls' stretch in which they won eight out of 12 games, they were averaging just fewer than seven runs per game, including a 16-0 victory. But during their recent losing streak, the Bulls have been unable to score more than five runs in any one game, including one shutout.

"That's just a matter of a couple guys getting hot at the same time," said Breene. "We were hitting balls and scoring runs when we were winning earlier. We just haven't been getting the same production offensively."

While content with the performances turned in by UB pitchers, Breene is not pleased with the Bulls' production at the plate.

"I told the team we've been getting fairly good pitching throughout the streak of seven losses and basically just haven't been putting runs on the board," said Breene. "And that's been the difference."

Despite the struggles, one bright spot at the plate for the Bulls during this stretch has been freshman second baseman Mike Folli, who has maintained a 12-game hitting streak through the Bulls' offensive woes.

"Mike's a guy when we recruited him, we knew he could hit from both sides of the plate," said Breene. "He's a good ballplayer, he's a kid that we anticipated coming in would play a lot as a freshman."

After the loss to St. Bonaventure, Breene told the team that he was disappointed in the way they played in their first home game of the year.

"I addressed the team after the game and challenged them," said Breene. "I thought they came out flat, there wasn't a whole lot of enthusiasm, and I was disappointed in that regard."

Specifically, Breene explained to the team that there is no way the Bulls can expect to be successful within the schedule that they play if they continue to play the same way they played in this game.

"I told them there was no excuse for that, they need to come out every day here at our place with some intensity, and it wasn't there (Wednesday) and I was disappointed in that, and I let them know that," he said. "Hopefully they'll come out and play with some intensity against (Ohio)."

According to Breene, the Bulls will not reschedule the game against St. Bonaventure because of the distance between the two schools and how full each team's schedule is. Breene said that they would attempt to change a few of their current games into doubleheaders to make sure they play at least 52 to 56 games this year.

The Bulls open up their first series against a conference opponent at home this afternoon against Ohio. First pitch for the series is set for 3 p.m. at the Amherst Audubon Field today, with a doubleheader to wrap up the series set for 1 p.m. on Saturday.