Offensive problems continue as baseball downed 14-2

After losing much of its offensive pop from last year, the Duke baseball team was supposed to be all about pitching in 2003. And with Kevin Thompson returning to the hill after a shoulder injury forced the 2001 staff ace to sit out last season, the climb up to the top of the imposing ACC was supposed to be a bit less grueling.

None of those promises were fulfilled yesterday, as Thompson could not get through a five-run second inning in his second outing of the year, surrendering four runs along with a wild pitch and his own throwing error before exiting an inning and a third into the Blue Devils' (2-2) 14-2 dismantling at UNC-Wilmington (2-3).

"He threw well on Saturday against Cincinnati and only threw about 55 or 58 pitches, so we wanted to bring him back and see what he could do," head coach Bill Hillier said of Thompson (0-2). "It was tough, but his line doesn't do him justice. We made errors, and even though he made of them, those 20- or 30-mile-an-hour winds were pretty tough."

In its first road game of the year, Duke could not muster much on the offensive end, either.

Before the Seahawks blew things open in the bottom of the second, the Blue Devils had the bases loaded with no outs when Drew Jerdan grounded into a five-two-three double play and Senterrio Landrum struck out to squash the threat.

Though Landrum would redeem himself with a two-RBI single to the left field gap in the sixth, it was not enough to make up for the Blue Devils' 14 strikeouts and 12 runners left on base, nine of whom were in scoring position. Duke even ran UNCW starter Chris Coughlin's pitch count over 100 by the fifth inning.

The Seahawks would tack on eight more runs, and two homers, in the final three innings to run away with a game where Duke played with a sloppiness characteristic of the fragile, inexperienced team they do not want to be this season.

"The guys aren't frustrated but probably upset because Wilmington is a team we thought we could and that we can beat," Hillier said. "They just got the better of us today. We did not get the job done, and we have to get ready and regroup."