The Florida A&M baseball team had defensive hiccups, offensive troubles and was pounded at Moore-Kittles Field over the weekend.
The Rattlers completed a three game series with Jackson State Tigers and the Rattlers came out on the losing end 1-2.
The Rattlers were plagued by errors since game one, and errors proved to be the main reason for the lopsided losses.
The first two games were played on Friday, which had the Rattlers splitting the series by scores of 7-3, in a losing effort, and winning in the second game 6-1.
The third game of the series was called in the 7th inning after the Rattlers fell behind early and couldn’t manage a comeback. The ending score was 13-2.
“It was just one of those days,” pitcher Thomas Barwick said. “We just got to get this out of our heads and focus on our game Monday. We made errors. It’s not the defenses fault, it’s my fault too. I wasn’t hitting my spots.”
The Rattlers scored 11 runs in a combined three games and managing to only get 27 hits while leaving 21 left on base.
“We tried to string together some hits, but we couldn’t get them together in one inning,” First Baseman Dylan West said. “We had six hits for each of the 7 innings and we probably had one inning were we had multiple hits. It’s the way it works sometimes, its baseball you can’t always play your greatest game every day, but it’s something you would have to work on.”
In the Rattlers losses, errors were costly. The Rattlers had 15 errors on the weekend series against the Tigers.
“We talk about it all the time making routine plays and once again it came and bit us in the behinds,” head coach Brett Richardson said. “It’s not anything difficult it just the routine plays guys dropping balls and infielders taking their eyes off the ball. We always talk about step 1 before going to step 2.”
Defense was a problem for the team last year and Richardson wants to correct that.
“Our problems on the defensive end,” Richardson said. “That was our problem from last year that is slowly, but surely creeping in on us this year. That’s my responsibility, that’s my fault and we will get it turned around.”
The Rattlers look to change their ways as they go on the road and prepare to take on Mercer Bears, who beat the Rattlers in both of their previous meetings earlier in the month.