Duke baseball reels off fourth-straight win

Chris Marconcini had three of Duke’s 17 hits, including a two-run homer in the fifth inning as the redshirt junior tied his career high with four RBIs.
Chris Marconcini had three of Duke’s 17 hits, including a two-run homer in the fifth inning as the redshirt junior tied his career high with four RBIs.

After the pitching staff carried the Blue Devils in their weekend sweep of Notre Dame, the Duke offense reminded everyone of the damage it is capable of causing opposing pitcher's ERAs.

The Blue Devils extended their winning streak to four games by pounding Maryland Eastern Shore 15-7 Tuesday night at Jack Coombs Field. Each of the nine Duke starters reached base safely and six recorded multiple hits as the Blue Devils tied a season high with 17 hits.

On a day when the cold, damp weather made hitting conditions difficult, Duke was able to produce six runs in two-strike situations.

“Tough day to play,” head coach Chris Pollard said. “I thought our two-strike hitting was the difference. It was great to see [Mark] Lumpa have some really good two-strike at-bats, [Chris] Marconcini made a really good adjustment in the ballgame, [Jordan] Betts had a couple big two-out RBI doubles, so a lot of guys doing some really positive things.”

The Blue Devils (13-8) did their most significant damage in the fourth inning when they sent 11 batters to the plate and scored six runs to build what would prove to be an insurmountable 9-2 lead. Duke loaded the bases with nobody out against Hawks starter Will Turley before Maryland Eastern Shore (3-11) went to its bullpen to bring in left-hander Jordan Bone. Bone promptly walked center fielder Mark Lumpa—who also rapped out four hits in his other four plate appearances—to force in a run and then gave up a two-RBI single to designated hitter Mike Rosenfeld that pushed the Blue Devils’ lead to 6-2.

Duke tacked on three additional runs later in the frame thanks to an RBI single by cleanup hitter Chris Marconcini and a two-strike, two-RBI knock from catcher Christian Perez.

After the Hawks started to chip away at the Duke lead with three runs in the top of the fifth, the Blue Devils went right back to work at the plate to maintain their six-run lead. Duke scored three runs against Maryland Eastern Shore reliever Mike Epps, highlighted by a towering two-run homer over the right-field fence by Marconcini—his team-leading sixth dinger of the season.

“[Tacking on runs] was, I thought, very important,” Pollard said. “They had a really good offensive approach too, and they continued to put runs on the board. It was still anybody’s ball game up through the eighth inning, so I felt like we needed to continue to be opportunistic as far as building on the lead.”

Coming off a start against Quinnipiac in which he didn’t make it out of the fourth inning, freshman Karl Blum was able to make it through four complete frames, allowing two earned runs on five hits and two walks. He started to lose his control in the fourth, uncorking three wild pitches that led to an easy run for Maryland Eastern Shore. After the offense’s long turn at bat in the bottom of the fourth, Blum was lifted in favor of junior right-hander Dalton Brown.

“I thought [Blum] was solid,” Pollard said. “I thought that Karl, like a lot of our young guys, is going to get better with all these experiences and right now I think he’s still learning how to pitch to left-handers and getting comfortable with that. It’s just a process.”

Brown, in his second appearance of the season, yielded three earned runs on four hits and struck out four in two innings of work, showing a bit of rust but displaying swing-and-miss stuff at times.

“Dalton is, in a lot of ways, still working himself back into shape,” Pollard said. “We understand that. So I think the fact that he feels good, that he was able to extend out to two innings—I thought in that regard it was a positive.”

Duke now faces a quick turnaround, as the Blue Devils welcome Ivy League opponent Princeton 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon with the hope of pushing their winning streak to six.

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