The baseball team (15-17) entered the heart of its season last weekend against Virginia, which took all three games of the opening series of Duke's month-long homestand. After a defensively disappointing series against the Cavaliers in which Duke committed ten errors, the Blue Devils look to turn the tide against No. 18 East Carolina (24-6) tonight at Jack Coombs Field.
"We hope to make no errors [against ECU]," head coach Bill Hillier said. "I just want it to be a clean game because if we don't make errors, we have a good chance at winning this game."
Even with clean play, however, the Blue Devils will have their work cut out for them because ECU has had an impressive season thus far. The Pirates' batting average is an even .300, with six players over that mark and five with over 20 RBIs. ECU also features twin brothers, Darryl and Trevor Lawhorn, who have hit home runs in the same game three times this season. Most recently, the latter sibling earned Conference USA Hitter of the Week honors.
The Pirates' pitching staff is led by junior Greg Bunn, who boasts a slim 1.97 ERA in over 50 innings pitched. He has five wins in his eight starts and has struck out 60 batters. Brody Taylor, another possible starter in tonight's game, has a 3.13 ERA and a 4-0 record. He has struck out 48 batters in 46 innings. The team's ERA is 2. 87 and its opponents are averaging .223 against its pitchers.
Though ECU's program is quite strong, Duke is optimistic about its chances tonight. The Blue Devils will throw staff tonight--a number of pitchers will see time on the mound over the course of the contest.
"When your starters are pitching so many quality innings, your relievers don't see as much time on the mound," Hillier said. "So, I'll throw maybe even nine pitchers, and hope that each of them can give a quality inning."
In order to win tonight's game though, Duke will also need to produce at the plate. The Blue Devils, who have not had 10 hits in a game since playing Maryland at the end of March, have been shut down by pitchers recently.
"We just have to hit," batting average leader Javier Socorro said.
Only three Blue Devils are batting over .300 and the team's average is .265. Tim Layden leads the team with 36 RBIs, four homeruns and a .473 on-base percentage. Leadoff batter Jonathan Anderson has yet to be caught stealing second base in 14 attempts this season.
On the mound, Duke has shown a lot of promise this year, but inconsistency continues to plague the pitching staff.
"We have to avoid the big inning [against ECU]," pitcher Greg Burke said. "We have to avoid giving up those four or five-run innings if we expect to win."
The three primary starters, Zach Schreiber, Burke and Layden, have combined for almost 150 strikeouts. Five of Duke's pitchers have an ERA under 3.00, including Burke, who leads the team with the most strikeouts and the least walks. Justin Dilucchio and Tony Bajoczky, each with 11 strikeouts and ERAs under 2.00, are among the pitchers likely to see the mound tonight.
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