CHAPEL HILL--On Sunday, Duke's pitching staff gave up more runs in its loss to UNC's baseball team than either the Blue or White football teams did in Saturday night's scrimmage.
Duke lost Sunday's game by three touchdowns, 25-4. The Blue Devils also lost the other two weekend games with the Tar Heels by football-like margins--11-4 on Friday and 8-2 on Saturday.
Sunday's loss to the Tar Heels at Boshamer Stadium was the most lopsided defeat ever in the 220-game series between the two rivals. It was also the most runs North Carolina has ever scored against Duke and the fifth most by the team since 1901.
"I'm really disgusted, I guess," Duke senior right fielder Luis Duarte said. "Everything that could possibly go wrong did. Everything they hit found a hole. It was really ugly."
The Blue Devils were swept in their second straight Atlantic Coast Conference series to drop to 25-18 on the season and 4-14 in the ACC. Duke has lost nine of its last 10 games, including seven in a row in the ACC.
"We've lost a lot of confidence in our ability to win games," Duke head coach Steve Traylor said. "And that's the worst thing that can happen to a young team."
During their current ACC losing streak, the closest the Blue Devils have come to victory was a 7-4 defeat at the hands of Maryland. Duke's pitchers have given up at least seven runs in every game.
"We're at the point where we don't have any pitchers who are able to go out there and stop the bleeding," Traylor said.
Sunday's game began without any indication of the pitching debacle that it would become. Sophomore Richard Dishman, making his first ACC start, retired the first three batters he faced, including one by strikeout.
But UNC started pouring on the runs in the second. Crandel Coltrane and David Boone hit home runs on consecutive pitches to begin the inning.
"It was the same pitch, the same swing and the same home run," Dishman said of the blasts that both soared directly over the 352 sign in right field.
The Tar Heels scored two more runs in the inning on a pair of errors by shortstop Frankie Chiou.
Carolina scored only one in the third, but then racked up seven in the fourth, including a grand slam by Brian Whitlock. Third baseman Robby McIver followed Whitlock's blast with a homer of his own, the second time in three innings that UNC hit back-to-back homers.
The Tar Heels then scored at least two runs in every remaining inning.
"[Carolina has] really good hitters, and they must have had their Wheaties today," Dishman said. "They were just teeing off and swinging for the fences.
"But the pitching wasn't 25-runs bad. The defense was bad, too."
Duke committed a total of four errors Sunday. Six of the Tar Heels' 25 runs were unearned.
Boone and McIver led the Tar Heels with three hits each, but every starter except one scored at least two runs.
"We didn't think they were really up for the [third] game the way they should have been," McIver said. "They were kind of quiet before the game. Usually when you lose the first two, you want to play harder to avoid being swept."
In Friday's game, UNC jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead in two innings off of Duke starter Scott Schoeneweis. Duke battled back to within two in the third, but Carolina exploded for six runs in the fifth to put the game out of reach.
Mike Stoner led off the game with a homer, and finished 2-for-4 with three runs scored and two driven in. Stoner had two hits in every game of the series to push his current hitting streak to 24 games.
The Blue Devils were also victimized by a big inning in Saturday's loss. Carolina only led 3-1 at the seventh-inning stretch. But the Tar Heels then rattled off four runs in the seventh and another one in the eighth to distance themselves from the Blue Devils.
Ethan Stein went the distance for UNC, limiting Duke to just two runs on seven hits while recording seven strikeouts.
Duke still has a chance to finish the season with some impressive numbers due to its 16-2 start. With 13 games remaining, Duke is within five victories of a 30-win season. If this win total is reached, the senior class would become the first Duke class ever to record at least 30 wins in every one of its seasons.
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