BY MATT STOUT

The Concord baseball team envisioned itself as a state tournament-qualifying team at the onset of this season, and 10 games in, it still does.

But as his teammates gathered up their things behind him in the visitors’ dugout following an 11-0 loss to Salem on Monday, May 7, Tide captain Evan Leary spelled out a realistic scenario.

With nine games to play, including a contest against Nashua South on Wednesday, May 9, Concord would have to play .500 baseball or better if it had any hope of salvaging this season. Because it’s not just about making the Class L playoffs; Concord believes it’s capable of that. It’s making them with a chance of advancing.

“We don’t want to go in and have to play these guys first round,” Leary said, gesturing to the Salem players walking across the nearby infield. “That’s not what we’re looking to do.”

But after starting the season 2-0, Concord has dropped seven of its last eight to stand at 3-7 entering the Nashua South match-up, with many reasons for the slide.

When it’s not a lack of hitting, it’s a lack of pitching. When it’s not a late-game collapse, it’s an early inning hole the team can’t escape. The alternating scenarios have been maddening at times for coach Scott Owen and his players, as is the team’s inability to produce the clutch hit.

Monday’s loss to the first-place Blue Devils was more a case of a hot team running into a slumping one, but as Concord enters the second half of the spring, it’ll still have to contend with a busy schedule that has it playing four games a week and a pitching staff still in search of the depth to handle the extra work.

There have been positives. Juniors Bill Swasey, batting at the top of the order, and Taylor Smith, in the middle, were both hovering around .400 entering the Salem game. And on Wednesday, the Tide planned to get a boost from their top pitcher, John Andersch.

Concord’s only experienced hurler, Andersch started the team’s season-opening win over West and has been solid since, but was saddled with the loss in a 1-0 setback to Goffstown on May 1 and took a no decision in a 4-3 loss to Pinkerton Academy at the end of April.

Owen has looked up and down his bench for arms, handing the ball to Jack Mullen and Tommy Mullen, who started against Salem; sophomore Griffin Tewksbury, son of former pro pitcher Bob; Murphy Rainville, also the team’s cleanup hitter; and Leary, who threw 2 1/3 innings of relief on Monday in his third game in the two weeks.

“The only thing is we have a lot of confidence when John is on the mound, but we have to get some confidence when we have other guys up on the mound,” Owen said. “I think we can play with anybody when we’re playing well. But we have to play well, and we haven’t done that so far.”

Concord hosts Nashua North on Thursday, May 10, before traveling to play Trinity on Friday, May 11.