LEXINGTON ? True freshman Andrew Albers hurled eight shutout innings to lead Kentucky to a 7-0 victory over Toledo on Friday afternoon at Cliff Hagan Stadium.
The win was the sixth straight for the Wildcats, who improved to 7-1 on the year. Toledo dropped to 1-3. The two teams resume their three-game series on Saturday at 1 p.m. Kentucky will send freshman Scott Green (Louisville, Ky./Male) to the mound and Toledo will counter with Joe Welsh.
Albers (North Battlefield, Saskatchewan/John Paul II Collegiate) worked eight innings to improve to 2-0. He has now thrown at least eight innings in each of his three collegiate starts. Friday, he gave up just three hits while striking out two and walking three. Only two Rocket players reached to second base.
?Andrew pitched very, very well today and we?re pleased with that,? said Kentucky coach John Cohen. ?It was a defensive day with the way the wind was blowing and the defense did a good job behind him.?
Offensively, Kentucky took advantage of six errors and 13 walks by Toledo to put seven runs on the board. Junior Michael Bertram (Lexington, Ky./Lafayette) got Kentucky on the board in the first with a walk, stolen base before coming home on a throwing error by the pitcher, J.R. Duffey.
The stolen base was the first of eight by Kentucky in the game, which gives the Wildcats 19 on the year. That is just two shy of the team?s 2004 season total.
?In what we evaluated about Toledo, we felt the running game was going to be available to us,? Cohen said. ?It?s a part of our game that we will be using more and more because we have some guys who can really run.?
Kentucky broke the game open in the third with three runs. Bertram singled and Billy Grace (Granger, Ind./Penn) walked to put two runners on for J.P. Lowen (Marietta, Ga./Lassiter), who singled to bring Bertram home. Grace and Lowen executed a double steal and then scored when there were two fielding errors on John Shelby?s (Lexington, Ky./Tates Creek) grounder to third.
?We were fortunate to get a few breaks early,? Cohen said. ?We took advantage of them with some good hustle plays to gets some runs.?
Lehmann walked to lead off the fifth, stole two bases and was plated on Antone DeJesus?s (Amherst, Ohio/Amherst Steele) sacrifice fly for a 5-0 Kentucky lead. Bertram knocked a two-out, two-run single in the seventh to close out the scoring.
Bertram finished 3-for-3 with two RBI and two runs scored.
Toledo?s only real scoring opportunity came in the fifth. Travis Pilewski led off with a double, and was wisely held at third on Matt Ruth?s single to center. The throw from DeJesus went all the way to the plate, prompting Rush to try for second, where he was gunned down for the second out. Albers then got Jake Swint to ground out to end the inning.
Albers was relieved in the ninth by Craig Snipp after throwing 96 pitches. Snipp worked a perfect inning to finish off the shutout. It was the first shutout for Kentucky since blanking Morehead State, 8-0, a year ago.
Duffey took the loss to drop to 0-2. He went five innings and allowed five runs on four hits. He was responsible for eight of the walks.
–notebook to follow?
Notes: Kentucky has won six straight, its longest win streak since taking seven straight near the end of the 2000 season ? Kentucky has also won six straight at home dating back to last year ? Kentucky is 3-0 in Friday games this year ? Andrew Albers has three quality starts in as many collegiate appearances ? Albers worked eight innings for the third straight start ? Kentucky is 3-0 in Albers starts ? Kentucky has 19 stolen bases, just two shy of its 2004 total of 21 ? Kentucky executed two double steals ? Brian Hastings hit streak was snapped at five ? Michael Bertram has hit safely in seven of eight games and reached safely in all eight ? Bertram has four multi-hit games and four multi-RBI games ? Kentucky stranded 12 base runners and has stranded 10 or more in five of its past six games ? Kentucky is off to its best start at 7-1 since the 2000 season.
