Urban tosses seven scoreless as Duke baseball cruises past Davidson

The Cornell transfer has not allowed a run in his last 13 innings

<p>Sophomore Jack Labosky reached base three times Tuesday, including a two-run triple.</p>

Sophomore Jack Labosky reached base three times Tuesday, including a two-run triple.

When Kellen Urbon takes the mound, his teammates know they aren’t going to be in the field very long.

Urbon tossed seven scoreless frames Tuesday night as the Blue Devils beat Davidson 9-2 at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, running his personal scoreless streak to 13 innings. The right-hander allowed just one hit—a harmless fourth-inning single—and two other baserunners. Duke’s offense gave the Cornell product plenty of early run support, putting up five runs in the bottom of the first thanks to seven hits in the frame.

Urbon worked quickly and efficiently, needing just 83 pitches to get through the seven innings. Fifty-eight of those pitches went for strikes, and the San Diego native got through four stanzas in nine or fewer pitches.

“It’s the best. When he is getting ahead of guys early in the count and having innings where he throws less than 10 pitches, it’s good for our defense staying alert and staying ready but also for the offense because we want to go get him more runs,” sophomore Max Miller said. “We’re back in the dugout real quick.”

After the Blue Devils (5-3) returned to the first-base dugout following Urbon’s nine-pitch first inning, they stayed there for quite a bit. Duke strung together four straight hits to open the scoring, with consecutive singles by Zack Kone, Miller and Jimmy Herron setting the table for cleanup hitter Jack Labosky. The sophomore took a pitch the other way that fell just in front of right fielder Lee Miller and skipped under his glove and down the line. Miller trotted in from third and Herron scored all the way from first to stake Urbon to a 3-0 lead, with Labosky ending up at third with his first triple of the year.

Right fielder Peter Zyla continued the scoring with an RBI groundout to put Wildcat starter Evan Roberts back in the wind-up, but Duke went right back to work. After an Evan Dougherty strikeout, Griffin Conine singled sharply into center field before promptly stealing second. The freshman scored on a bloop by first baseman Justin Bellinger—Duke’s seventh hit and sixth single of the inning.

“Every ball that was hit in that first inning today just kind of had eyes,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “We’re not a prolific power team. We’re going to use our speed to try to get to first base and then hopefully get some things going with our speed once we get on first, and that’s kind of how it played out today.”

The long bottom half of the inning—and the four-run third inning that followed shortly after—could have thrown Urbon out of sync, but he went down to the bullpen to stay warm and showed no ill effects when he returned to the mound.

“I’d rather have more runs than less runs,” he said.

Urbon needed just nine more pitches to cruise through the second inning before laboring slightly in the third despite not allowing a baserunner. For the second straight start, Urbon commanded his slider early in the count, keeping Davidson (4-4) guessing and starting to mix in his change-up.

His walk and hit batter both came in the seventh, but were promptly negated by Urbon’s fifth strikeout of the night. Four of his five punch-outs came on called third strikes.

“I try and pound the strike zone,” Urbon said. “I’m not much of a swing-and-miss guy, so I try not to get too late in the count, because if they know a fastball’s coming, it’s not going to help me out. I really try to force early, weak contact.”

Duke sent nine Blue Devils to the plate again in the third, thanks to wildness of new Davidson pitcher Chad Moss. Dougherty led off with a walk and advanced to second on a passed ball, then scored on Conine’s RBI single—one of the freshman’s three hits on the day. A one-out single by catcher Chris Proctor plated Justin Bellinger—who scampered down to second on a Moss wild pitch—and Kone walked before Miller launched a bases-clearing double to the left-center field gap.

Urbon retired the next two hitters in the top of the fourth before yielding his first and only hit of the night to Davidson shortstop Sam Foy.

Pollard said he was not expecting to keep the right-hander in the game for as long as he did, but Urbon’s efficiency allowed him to work deep into the contest while ending up around Pollard’s goal of 85 pitches. With another game Wednesday evening at Campbell and a weekend series against Toledo on the horizon, his quick work Tuesday preserved the bullpen for later in the week.

“It’s huge. We could use every inning we got out of him today with the long week,” Pollard said. “It was a big shot in the arm.”

Freshman Zack Kesterson made his debut on the mound in relief in the eighth inning, but quickly ran into trouble of his own creation. Kesterson struggled with his command, yielding a lead-off walk and consecutive singles to load the bases before walking in a run. Pollard emerged from the dugout to summon veteran southpaw Kevin Lewallyn, who issued a free pass of his own and allowed a run to score on a wild pitch. But the senior limited the damage by striking out the side, all on called third strikes.

Labosky will take the ball Wednesday for the Blue Devils against the Fighting Camels.

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