HOOS win 31-8 to complete the weekend sweep and improve to 3-0 on the season. Wagner falls to 0-3.
Next up is a midweek game against VMI this Tuesday 3PM EST at The Dish.
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Geez, no run rule? I guess that the coaches want the playing time. SMH.
So, 13-7 ended up as the low-scoring, nail-biter of a game.
Over the 3 game series, UVA scored 69 runs. Nice.
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Has to be agreed to by both coaches, kinda insane neither game ended in the 7th. Wagner was hitting so many batters it actually became dangerous.
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That record may stand for a long time.
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That I’m aware of. It’s usually agreed on, particularly when you have a top team like UVA playing a mid-major. But, like I said, both teams might have wanted the practice.
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Quick thoughts
Stammel, Colucci, and Yoder looked really good. Koenen looked good until the long delay. Hartman looked pretty good. Lucarelli and Bassett have plus stuff if they can shore up command.
Kapa didn’t have to throw. Should have Paone, Kapa, Augustin and others ready for a pretty tough VMI club. Every non con game is important
Wagner struggled throwing strikes and playing Defense. But offense was patient and had some nice barrels. Pretty crazy that we hit 6 homers but 0 from Becker, Gracia, Sam Harris, Didawick and Tiroly
Defense is going to improve significantly when Tiroly returns to the field. That will also open up the DH spot for Enis or Kyle or whoever is hot
Also Jake Weatherspoon will be back in 3 weeks. He brings a lot defensively and has a big bat
Just really, really need for KJ to be healthy and ready to go on Friday nights by the UNC series
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Its also going to make our offensive numbers look absolutely insane for the next month or two.
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I have never seen a worse team on TV in my life - that was brutal and yet I couldn’t stop watching it - so entertaining and hilarious and sad.Hoos walked 14 times, HBP 7 times - lost count of wild pitches - scored an all time high 31 runs and also walked the opponent 10 times.
Whew.
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Pitching performance in general was pretty ugly on the weekend, but was very encouraged by our first year arms as you mentioned. Yoder and Stroman both stood out to me on the mound, and Lucarelli’s got some juice as well as a potential two to three out guy out of the pen. Kinda wish we got to see more than three innings out of Stammel but didn’t seem like Pollard and Kirkpatrick wanted to put strain on any of our pitchers, felt kinda like an audition for a lot of the guys on our staff. Am excited to see how Paone looks on Tuesday, assuming either him or Augustin will get that start.
Wagner returned a good amount of production from a lineup that hit .314 last season, and were picked preseason to finish 2nd in the conference. So there is definitely merit to their bats being legit. But as already mentioned by a couple of us, holy hell was the rest of the operation horrible for them. They looked like a team that has barely played live baseball outdoors the past couple of months, and given they’re from Staten Island I would imagine there’s a lot of truth to that statement.
Not much to say about the bats, they were fantastic. Tons of patience, Gracia might have the best eye I’ve seen at UVA since Mike Papi. To your point about Weatherspoon I thought O’Connell and Jouras both looked solid at and behind the plate in his absence which is a nice problem to have while Jake heals up. Jouras in particular does not get cheated on his swings, and is VERY vocal on the field which I appreciate.
All in all a lot to like from this weekend and a lot to improve on, but part of the improvement will be as simple as getting a couple guys healthy. There’s enough pieces here to have a really special season if Pollard and company can find the right formula.
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56 in a doubleheader has to be an ACC record
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SS RJ Holmes, Virginia (2-4, HR, 4 RBI, 3 R, BB)
OF Griffin Enis, Virginia (3-5, 2B, 7 R, 3 BB, 2 SB)
DH Thomas O’Connell, Virginia (3-8, 4 RBI, 2 R, 2 BB)
HM
RP Noah Yoder, Virginia (1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R/ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 11p)
RP Jayden Stroman, Virginia (2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R/ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 36p)
RP Ryan Prior, Virginia (1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R/ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 19p)
OF Will Mahala, Virginia (1-2, HR, RBI, 3 R, BB)
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It took work to get the baseball and softball fields ready for last weekend’s games.
https://twitter.com/stillmikebarber/status/2023785173113069898?s=46&t=vkjgQUekzGC7z44tIfnIRQ
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https://twitter.com/uvabaseball/status/2023759341590114637?s=46
Got some midweek action here in about an hour. VMI is 4-0 to start the season.
First year RHP John Paone is expected to get the start on the mound.
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https://twitter.com/UVABaseball/status/2023840419906547996?s=20
Starting lineup. Tiroly gets his first work in the field this season, a little surprising it’s at 3rd. He did get a good amount of time there during fall ball.
Baseball channeling their inner basketball team with slow starts … Tiroly with the go ahead double in bottom of first
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HOOS lead 3-1 after 1. Tiroly with a two RBI double and Didawick with and RBI single.
Paone gave up a walk/stolen base/base hit in the top half but did strike out the side.
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HOOS lead 4-1 after 2. Had the bases loaded with no outs but only got across one.
Paone finishes his day with 5 K’s, looked very impressive outside of the first couple batters. RHP Noah Yoder takes over on the mound.
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VMI has 32 steals in 4 games coming into today…also managed to get 20 HBPs in that same timeframe.
Glad we got out of that jam free.