After Duke’s young players stole the show for much of the first month of the season, two upperclassmen carried the Blue Devils to a win Tuesday.
Junior Cris Perez and redshirt junior Jalen Philiips combined to go 6-for-6 with five doubles, breaking out of early-season slumps to help push Duke past Maryland-Eastern Shore 9-1 at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Graduate student Kellen Urbon started and threw six scoreless innings to keep the Hawks at bay until a five-run seventh inning for the Blue Devils broke the game open.
“I’ve had a lot of conversations with Jalen. We’ve been in a similar position to begin the season, and it’s tough. Baseball is a difficult sport,” Perez said. “To see him get out there and get a couple good swings under his belt, hopefully he can build off of that, and hopefully I can build off of it and we can build off of it as a team.”
Perez entered the contest batting just .156, but smacked the ball to the wall all four times he came to the plate and came inches from a home run his first time up on a line drive that hit the top of the Blue Monster in left field.
The Miami native was thrown out trying to leg out a double in his second at-bat after hitting a one-hopper to the wall in left. During the pivotal seventh frame, Perez doubled the other way to drive in a run and then took another two bases on a drive to left in the eighth inning.
Phillips was mired in an even deeper slump to start the year, with just one hit—a home run—in 24 at-bats coming into the game. But he came off the bench to connect on a hit into the gap in left-center field in the sixth inning before flaring a bloop hit over the third baseman’s head in the seventh and using his speed to land on second base again. The 6-foot-2 first baseman came around to score both times he reached base.
“I’m really proud of Cristian Perez. I’m really proud of Jalen Phillips coming off the bench. Those were really good at-bats by both those guys and that’s a big shot in the arm,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “Those are two guys we need over the course of the long haul this year.”
The Blue Devils (10-7) struggled to take control against Maryland-Eastern Shore starter Chris Melrath, who settled down after conceding two earned runs in the first inning, but Duke tagged the Hawks’ bullpen for seven earned runs in four innings to end the game.
Most of the damage in the seventh frame was self-inflicted by Maryland-Eastern Shore (4-12), which allowed three walks and committed two throwing errors, a balk and and a passed ball to go along with the doubles by Perez and Phillips and an RBI single by sophomore Michael Smiciklas.
Sophomore Evan Dougherty and freshman Jimmy Herron each stole a base during the inning as Duke swiped four bags throughout the game to put pressure on the Hawks’ defense and pitchers, who balked three times with runners on base.
“We’ve run up against a couple of opponents that have been good at shutting the running game down,” Pollard said. “[Virginia] is probably as good as anybody in the country at shutting it down, and if you go long enough without stealing some bags, you start to get on your heels and guys stop looking for it. It was important today to get guys on their toes again.”
Urbon lowered his ERA to 0.34 in an efficient 74-pitch performance and allowed just three hits, cementing his status as a reliable fourth starter to provide some depth for the Blue Devils’ pitching staff.
The graduate transfer from Cornell struck out a career-high seven batters, utilizing his slider effectively as an aggressive Maryland-Eastern Shore lineup that repeatedly chased breaking balls in the dirt with two strikes.
“He’s pitched well, of course, but you always try to find things to work on, and the one thing to work on last week was his two-strike execution,” Perez said. “We talked about it after the game last week, and to come out here today and to see him execute that, it was a treat to be a part of.”
The Hawks put runners in scoring position in the third, fifth and sixth innings against Urbon, but he pitched out of every jam and has now tossed 24 2/3 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run, though he did give up two unearned runs in a loss to Penn State last week.
“I sound like a broken record, but another great start by Kellen—really efficient again,” Pollard said. “He’s throwing the ball very well for us. When you get that kind of start on Tuesday, it really sets you up for the weekend.”
The Blue Devils were two outs away from their second straight shutout after Brian McAfee—another Big Red graduate transfer—blanked Virginia Sunday, but sophomore Jamison Trower homered to left field off senior Nick Hendrix in the ninth inning for Maryland-Eastern Shore’s only run of the game.
Duke welcomes arch-rival No. 6 North Carolina this weekend for a critical series at the DBAP, with the first pitch set for 6 p.m. Friday.
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