Duke baseball looks to cool down No. 1 North Carolina's pitching

The Devils took down the Florida State Seminoles, previously undefeated in the ACC, Saturday at Indoor Cameron Stadium
The Devils took down the Florida State Seminoles, previously undefeated in the ACC, Saturday at Indoor Cameron Stadium

Outscoring its opponents by a whopping 6.4 runs per game this season, No. 1 North Carolina has been tearing apart its opponents this season.

In Duke’s trip down the road to Chapel Hill this weekend, the Blue Devils hope to slow down the momentum of the nearly unstoppable Tar Heels in a three-game series with their archrivals. The action kicks off 3 p.m. Friday at Boshamer Stadium.

“Duke-North Carolina is one of the most tradition-laden rivalries in all of sports, and for us to be able to participate in that is a tremendous honor,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “Against a team like North Carolina, your margin of error is really, really small. You’ve got to be good in all three phases—pitching, offense and defense.”

The highest-scoring team in the country, the Tar Heels (36-2, 15-2 in the ACC) average 9.1 runs per game. Third baseman Colin Moran, who ranks first in the country in runs with 52 on the season, leads the charge with a .396 batting average. The junior was named National Hitter of the Week after crossing the plate 11 times last week, including a career-high five times in the second game of North Carolina’s sweep at Virginia Tech. Freshman outfielder Skye Bolt follows closely behind with a .392 batting average, but the rookie will be sidelined this weekend due to injury.

“[Bolt’s injury] is a bummer for North Carolina because he’s a good hitter,” said Duke sophomore right-hander Trent Swart, who will start on the mound Friday. “But we don’t really focus on their weaknesses as much as our strengths. We want to pitch to our strengths because that’s how we’re going to be more successful. We’re a good staff, and we can get it done if we focus on our pitches.”

Duke’s pitchers will focus on throwing first-pitch strikes, which they struggled with last weekend when the Blue Devils were swept by then-No. 7 Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla. after shutting out then-No. 15 Georgia Tech in two out of three games the weekend before.

Junior righty Robert Huber, who will pitch Sunday, attributes part of Duke’s success against the Yellow Jackets to first-pitch strikes. Strong pitching also led Duke (21-17, 8-10) to take a series from then-No. 24 Miami earlier the season.

“The biggest motto that we have this year is first-pitch strikes,” Huber said. “When you throw first-pitch strikes hitters have a low percentage of getting a hit in that count. Last week we weren’t the best at that coming off of Georgia Tech when we were very good at getting ahead in the count.”

Pollard said that in addition to a strong performance on the mound from Swart (4-2) Friday, junior right-hander Drew Van Orden (2-4) Saturday and Huber (5-3) Sunday, Duke will need to be opportunistic offensively, noting that the Blue Devils had baserunning blunders against Florida State that could have potentially cost them runs. He added that although Duke is coming off a 12-2 win against North Carolina A&T, a similar offensive outburst against the Tar Heels is highly unlikely.

“We’ve just got to try to manufacture runs,” Pollard said. “You’re not going to have a lot of big innings against North Carolina. Even in their losses, teams haven’t put together big innings against them. You just have to grind out at-bats and really hope that they make a mistake either on the mound or defensively.”

Equally as important as capitalizing on the Tar Heels’ mistakes will be sticking to the fundamentals in all three phrases of the game.

“We play our best baseball when we play fundamental ball,” Swart said. “We have to do everything right.”

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