LEXINGTON ? Missed opportunities plagued Kentucky while Cincinnati came through in clutch situations all night to earn a 7-2 victory on Wednesday night at the UC Baseball Stadium.
The loss drops the Wildcats to 19-17 overall and extends their streak of alternating wins and losses to 11 games. Cincinnati improved to 16-17 on the year and beat Kentucky for just the sixth time since 1983. All seven of Cincinnati?s runs came with two outs.
The Bearcats got on the board first on Jim Olds two-out, two-run double in the second. Both runs that scored were unearned after Ryan Wilkes booted a potential double-play ball with one out. The play marked Kentucky?s 21st consecutive game with an error.
In the third, Cincinnati used three consecutive two-out doubles to plate three runs and take a 5-0 lead. The third two-bagger chased freshman starter Alex Jordan, who took the loss to fall to 1-3 on the year.
?We had a young pitcher tonight who didn?t throw it down in the zone,? said Kentucky head coach John Cohen, who was ejected from the game in the ninth for arguing balls and strikes. ?That?s what freshman do. We have to get better and learn from this.?
Kentucky got back in the game with single runs in the fourth and fifth, but could have been much closer. In the fifth, J.P. Lowen and Ryan Wilkes singled and walked to lead off before an error on Antone DeJesus bunt attempt scored Lowen and left runners on second and third with no outs.
On the next play, J.B. Schmidt sent a chopper down the line and third baseman Jon DeLuca caught Wilkes in a run down. The next batter, Shaun Lehmann promptly grounded into an inning-ending double play. It was the first time this year Lehmann has been doubled up.
?We invented ways to get out tonight,? Cohen said. ?We got real tentative on the bases tonight and I feel like we left a lot of runs on the board. I think we had to have a checklist of about 10 things happen to lose this game and each one of them happened.?
Base-running errors bit the Wildcats again in the sixth. With runners on second and third and one out, Lowen drew a walk and the fourth ball bounced away from the catcher. Billy Grace began to come home, but hesitated and got caught in a run down for a momentum-killing second out.
?The ball came off the backstop harder than I read it and I just froze on it,? Grace said.
Kentucky recorded three more hits in the game, but one was off a bunt and the other two were infield singles. Meanwhile, Cincinnati added a run in the sixth and another in the eighth for the final margin.
The Wildcats return to action Friday at 6:30 p.m. when they begin a three-game set at No. 29 Mississippi State.
