After suffering through a brutal shutout against a Power-5 opponent Monday, the Blue Devils know they are running out of time to heat up at the plate with ACC competition around the corner.
Duke will look to show that desperation to get its lineup going in its last home series before the conference opener.
The Blue Devils will host Princeton this weekend for a four-game, three-day series starting Friday at 4 p.m. before a Saturday doubleheader and series finale Sunday. Duke has already scored just one run or been shut out three times already early this season, and hopes adjustments will pay dividends against a Tiger squad that will be playing its first games of the year.
“We want to be playing better baseball than we are right now. We’re a better team than we have played through nine games and it’s time to start righting the ship and playing the way we are capable of,” Blue Devil head coach Chris Pollard said. “You’ve got six games now before conference play starts to get it going and there’s going to have to be a sense of urgency to say, 'We’ve got some things we’ve got to fix.'”
Although the Tigers have yet to play this year, given the amount of veteran talent—the team features 10 seniors—on the roster, Princeton figures to rely on pitching to win games once again this season. Although the Tigers lost two of their top four hitters from last season and struggles to generate power at the plate, Princeton returns its top starter on the mound from last season—Chad Powers.
Now a senior, Powers went 6-4 in 11 starts last season with a 2.45 ERA, giving the Tigers a familiar face to turn to this weekend. The Blue Devils will have to show better plate discipline than they did Monday against Southern California, as all six of their hits were singles in an ugly 2-0 loss.
“They can pitch,” Pollard said. “They don’t run a lot, they don’t hit for a ton of power, but the one thing they did do a good job of is throwing strikes, and they didn’t give up any free bases.”
Luckily for the Blue Devils (3-6), it seems as if their pitching staff is starting to find its rhythm as well. Despite giving up 27 runs in four games at the Sanderson Ford Spring Training College Classic in Surprise, Ariz., Duke has allowed just three total runs in its last two games.
The offense, however, still has to catch up. Slugging at just .375 early in the season, the Blue Devils appeared to find a rhythm by taking two out of three games from Army last weekend before Monday's loss.
One possible reason for Duke’s struggles at the plate has been the fact that some players have been too aggressive in the batter's box. Rather than waiting for the right pitch, they have been eager to try to win the game with one swing, resulting in a meager four walks in the team's last three games and 14 fly-ball outs against the Trojans.
“One of the things we talked about a lot coming out of Monday was simplifying. Sometimes when you got guys that are working really hard and you try to get things going there’s a tendency to try to do too much,” Pollard said. “We have been guilty of trying to hit some five- and six-run home runs early in the season instead of staying simple, getting a guy to first base, put some pressure on our opposing pitcher and get some good pitches for the guy that’s in the batter’s box to hit.”
Although the Blue Devils have started the season slowly, they had ups and downs in nonconference play last season, compiling an 8-6 record before conference games started, then caught fire late in the year en route to the their first NCAA tournament since 1961.
Duke is hoping it can find more consistency starting this weekend as its new starting pitchers continue getting used to new roles.
“I think the thing I’ve seen a big improvement in over the past couple of ball games has been is just our competitive fight,” Pollard said. “We had very good competitive fight in Sunday’s game and also in Monday’s game, and that’s something we can build off of. You can recover from some mistakes when you really fight and when you really play hard.”
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