Baseball: Frith steps up as Cajuns win series finale

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, May 14, 2013

He had made just five appearances all season. He had pitched only 4.2 innings – fewest among all UL Ragin’ Cajuns pitchers. And his ERA coming into the weekend was 7.71, highest on UL’s staff before Sunday’s doubleheader with Sun Belt Conference-leading South Alabama.

But senior pitcher Ben Frith saved his best for last, allowing just four hits and one run while going 6.1 innings – a third-inning more than his entire prior UL career combined – and saving the Cajuns in their final home game of the 2013 regular season.

Frith (1-0) entered Senior Day with UL down six runs in the top half of the first inning and wound up with the win as the Cajuns came from behind to beat the Jaguars 17-7 in Sunday’s doubleheader Game 2 in front of an announced 2,243 at M.L. “Tigue” Field.

“We could have shut it down right there, and they (the Cajuns) didn’t. We had every reason to once we got behind,” UL coach Tony Robichaux said after his club improved to 35-17 overall, 16-11 in Sun Belt play. “But Ben (Frith) came in and bailed out (starter Ben) Carter, and from there the hitters started responding.”

South Alabama – ranked as high as No. 20 nationally, and now 39-14, 19-8 – took Game 1 of the doubleheader 9-5. That combined with a win Saturday night allowed the Jaguars to clinch a series victory – UL’s first home loss in eight home weekends this season.

But with Frith quieting South Alabama bats, UL pounded out 16 hits in the nightcap, including two Caleb Adams home runs, the second a walk-off solo shot in the seventh that ended things on the Sun Belt’s weekend-getaway 10-run rule.

After ending a streak of 12 straight games with at least one homer on Saturday, the Cajuns sent three over the wall in Sunday’s second game. They went into the series leading the nation in homers with 57, and now have 62.

Adams’ other homer was worth three runs in the fifth, and Dylan Butler followed two batters later with a two-run homer to cap a five-run inning and make it 16-7.

“We hit a lot of balls this weekend, and they just weren’t falling,” said Adams, who now has a team-high 13 homers. “Finally, this (last) game, they started falling for us and going our way, so that was a pretty good way to end it.”

UL picked a problematic way to start it, though, as South Alabama used three home runs to jump ahead 6-0 and chase Carter after just 0.2 innings.

Enter Frith, who lowered his ERA to 4.09 despite not even having enough time to fully warm up.

“I was kind of expecting to get in sometime this weekend, just because I’m a left-handed submarine guy and they have a bunch of lefties,” Frith said. “But to hear my name called that early was pretty surprising.

“When I went down there to go to the bullpen, it happened so fast. … So I get in there, and I’m a little nervous. But I got into a groove about the second or third inning.”

The only South Alabama run he allowed came in the fourth, making it 10-7 UL after the Cajuns had scored three in the bottom of the first, five in the second and two more in the third.

“It’s really surreal for me right now,” said Frith, a Westminster Christian Academy product who transferred to UL after two seasons at Marshall. “I hadn’t played a whole lot all year, and to get an opportunity to go in, and I’m successful – it really feels good.”

In Sunday’s first game, South Alabama scored at least one run in each of the first five innings.

The Jaguars scored two in the top of the first off of Cajun starter Cody Boutte (8-3), who was denied a chance to become the conference’s solo season wins leader.

UL did get one back in the bottom of the first, when Ryan Leonards walked and scored on Seth Harrison’s RBI groundout.

But South Alabama picked up one in the second, one in the third, three in a fourth inning that opened with Jeff DeBlieux’s solo homer and one more in the fifth to take an 8-1 lead.

Michael Strentz homered to lead off the fifth for UL and Dex Kjerstad singled in Jace Conrad make it 8-3 after five complete, and Butler delivered a solo home run – a big blast to left – in the sixth to trim the Jaguar advantage to 8-4.

But with South Alabama and UL only trading runs in the runs in the eighth – Harrison doubled, then scored on Adams’ sacrifice fly – the Cajuns lost their second straight series game.

Harrison and Tyler Girouard were the only Cajuns with multiple hits in the doubleheader opener, a loss that ensured UL no longer can finish the regular season first in the Sun Belt.

That’s left for South Alabama and Troy to settle.

But because of what Frith and the hitters behind were able to salvage from the series, UL – which closes its regular-season with a three-game weekend series at UL Monroe – still can get the No. 2 seed when it hosts the May 22-26 conference tournament.

That the Cajuns must take the series from ULM to do it – and hope for some help from South Alabama – only makes things more interesting.

“Next weekend,” Adams said, “is gonna be big, no matter what.”