As Eastern headed into the last inning against Olivet Nazarene with a 7-2 lead, the men’s baseball team believed it was safely ahead.

After a lead off single by the Tigers, however, Panthers pitcher Brian Long walked the next Olivet Nazarene batter then hit the next batter to load up the bases. Long hit the next batter to bring in a run that would start a six-run surge by the Tigers.

“Brian was struggling with that last season,” Eastern head coach Jimmy Schmitz said.

The Panthers ended up losing the top half of the double header 8-7. In the final inning, Eastern gave up three hits, two walks and hit two batters.

“I allowed that to happen,” Eastern head coach Jimmy Schmitz said. “There’s similar situations where a reliever will come in, and it will just be ‘boom, boom, boom’ and you’re out of the inning.”

Long isn’t the only player that has struggled with the same problem. So far this season, Eastern (1-6) has 38 walks (5.42 walks per game) and has hit 11 batters.

“I think we got enough of them for the whole season,” Schmitz said. “We’re not a strike out team, and if you’re not throwing strikes and walking and hitting batters, you won’t be in there.”

Senior pitcher Kyle Widegren, who has walked eight hitters and hit one batter in 11 innings, said that situation’s like Long’s can be frustrating when things start to snowball.

“When that happens, you have to clear everybody out of your mind and collect your thoughts,” Widegren said. “When (a young pitcher) comes off the mound, you have to tell (him he’ll) get them next time, and just don’t lose your focus.”

Schmitz encourages those kind of positive responses from senior leaders like Widegren but has also put extra pressure on his pitchers to perform.

“We’re putting extra pressure on pitchers by making them run more if they pitch bad, and (we’re) having more intense scrimmages, so they’re in those types of situations,” Schmitz said.

Schmitz also credits some of the problems to the caliber of teams the Panthers are playing but knows that his team can’t make excuses.

“We unraveled against Olivet Nazarene in front of 60 people (at Williams Field),” Schmitz said. “What’s going to happen when you’re in front of 6,000 people at Arkansas (who Eastern plays this weekend)?”