Eastern’s baseball team lost to Bradley 8-0 as the pitching of the Braves held the Panther’s offense to just eight hits Tuesday at Coaches Stadium.

The loss marked the first time Eastern has been shutout at home this season and dropped the Panther’s overall record to 15-38 while Bradley improved to 27-18.

The Panthers best opportunity to score came off of Bradley relief pitcher Josh Caruso in the bottom of the seventh inning. Bradley turned a double play to erase a leadoff single by Ryan Campbell. Eastern then started a two-out rally by loading the bases after two hits and an error. Caruso then induced Mike Astrouski to ground out to second base to end the inning and the scoring threat.

The game was scoreless through three innings as Bradley starting pitcher, Derek Goins, and Eastern’s starter, Ted Juske, matched each other pitch for pitch. Juske had six strikeouts and just one hit allowed in those three innings.

Bradley opened up the scoring in the top of the fourth when the designated hitter, Peter Malinowski, hit a sacrifice fly to left field off of new pitcher Mike Budde that scored Paul Rice. The Braves pushed across two more runs in the inning after a potential inning-ending double play ball got through the legs of Eastern shortstop Adam Varrassi and kept the inning alive.

Bradley took advantage of another defensive miscue by Eastern in the top of the sixth when a throw by pitcher Mike Manns got past the first baseman, allowing the runner on first to score and the batter to end up on third base with no outs. Manns then struck out Zachary Norris for the first out. Bradley catcher Ryan Eigsti, who went 3-4 with two rbi’s, followed that up with a base-hit past the drawn-in infield of Eastern to make the score 5-0. Of those five runs, four of them were unearned.

Bradley finished off the scoring when they added three runs on three hits in the ninth inning off of Eastern reliever Alex Guttosch.

Goins kept Eastern’s bats quiet through all six innings he pitched, allowing just three hits and one walk.

Goins (5-6) got credit with the victory for Bradley while Budde (3-6) took the loss for the Panthers.

Eastern’s next game is Friday at 1 p.m. when they host Tennessee Tech at Coaches Stadium in game 1 of a doubleheader.