The Fordham Rams are showing encouraging signs, especially in conference, as the 2012 baseball season winds to a close.

At 47 games into the season, the Fordham Rams are 19-28. Yet, this record does little to highlight some of the promising statistics of the Rams’ season thus far. While the team isn’t on pace to have the winning season that they had last year at 31-23-1, they still have a good record at home and in their conference.  They lost three position players and five pitchers this season and still managed a 10-9 home record and an even better 10-8 Atlantic-10 (A-10) record. The team is hoping for a few more overall win while maintaining the respectable records that they have, both at Fordham and in their division. The team’s wins are often led by the efforts of  infielder Mike Mauri, Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) ’13 and pitcher Daniel Munday, FCRH ’12.

Munday and Mauri were rewarded for their efforts during the second-to-last week in April, being named A-10 players of the week.  Mauri was named A-10 Player of the Week for the first time, while Munday was named A-10 Pitcher of the Week for the third time in his career (but first since his rookie year). Mauri has had an outstanding week, batting .588 through this span, with a perfect fielding percentage and four multi-hit games. This past week is merely adding to his already excellent season; Mauri is leading the team in nearly everything, including RBIs (27), hits (53), and batting average (.319). Munday also had an excellent week, striking a career-high nine batters in the complete-game shutout he threw against La Salle on April 20th.  Dominant pitching nearly always translates into wins, and Munday has to continue to attempt to replicate this stellar performance to propel the Rams to a great end to the season. Munday (4-3) and teammate Joseph Charest, FCRH ’13 (4-7) have been the core of the Rams pitching staff, sporting 4.14 and 3.76 ERAs respectively.

This past week, the Rams travelled to Columbia to take on their old-time rivals the Columbia University Lions. While Columbia had won five out of the last six team meetings, the Rams had swept last year’s double-header, and they hoped to do the same this year. The rivalry dates back to the 1880s, and while Fordham has struggled recently, the Rams lead the Lions overall, 68-49-2.

After a lackluster first game in which Fordham lost 6-1, the Rams came back and split the double header, winning the second game 4-2. Though the bullpen allowed five runs, starter John Porter, FCRH ’12, (2-5) took the loss in game one, allowing one run on two hits in three innings. Game two was much better for the Rams. Tim Swatek, FCRH ’14, who had three hits in the series, hit the go-ahead two-run-single in the seventh inning to win Game two when the score was knotted at 2-2. Closer Rich Anastasi, FCRH ’13, came and locked down the game for the Rams, earning his third save for the season.

The Rams still have nine games left, including four conference games and nine home games. The team hopes to finish the season strong and maintain their effectiveness in-conference.