Duke is leaving campus, but still staying at home.
The Blue Devils will play their first games at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park this season when they host Columbia for a two-game series Tuesday and Wednesday at 6 p.m. Duke played six games at the DBAP—which is also home to the Durham Bulls minor league team—a season ago, posting a 3-3 ledger.
Playing in a minor league stadium is a special occasion for any college team, but this opportunity is especially so for the Blue Devils, since the DBAP is considered one of the top venues in minor league baseball and contains several allusions to the classic movie “Bull Durham.”
“It’s exciting for all of us. It’s an incredible ballpark,” head coach Chris Pollard said on the weekly Duke Baseball Show. “[It is] truly one of the best ballparks in the country at any level. The renovations over the last two years have only made a great ballpark even better. It’s a fun experience for our players. I know it’s certainly one of the reasons many of these guys have chosen come to play at Duke—the opportunity to come and play at this ballpark.”
In order to repeat some of its success from last year at the DBAP—such as a 2-0 defeat of N.C. State ace and eventual No. 3 overall draft pick Carlos Rodon—Duke (14-5) will have to score some runs for a pitching staff that has been rock-solid all season. In an effort to jumpstart an offense that has been sluggish at times, Pollard shuffled his lineup during the past week—sliding freshmen Jack Labosky and Evan Dougherty down in the order and bumping up Peter Zyla and senior Mike Rosenfeld.
Rosenfeld, in particular, has been a bright spot for the Blue Devils in his final year in Durham. The catcher leads the team in each of the three major offensive categories, with a .345 batting average, a .465 on-base percentage and a .431 slugging percentage. In addition to his tangible contributions at the plate, Pollard praised Rosenfeld’s excellent glovework behind the dish and competitive, grind-it-out attitude.
The rest of the Duke hitters might benefit from a change of scenery away from the deep fences of Jack Coombs Stadium. Whereas the notoriously pitcher-friendly Coombs features a traditional, symmetric fence all the way around, the DBAP has several nuances—including a mini Green Monster in left field—that makes life easier on batters.
After the midweek two-game set, the Blue Devils will play three more games this weekend at the DBAP, giving Duke’s young hitters the chance to take advantage of a more fortunate environment and settle into a groove offensively.
“Consistency is what we’re striving for offensively. We haven’t found it yet,” Pollard said. “We’re really good at times and at times, we don’t have a good approach and that’s part of what you’re going to get when you have four freshmen in the lineup and two sophomores who didn’t get a lot of at-bats last year.”
Columbia (3-6) will have the same opportunity to utilize the DBAP’s friendly confines and put up runs in bunches. The Lions opened their season three weeks ago by splitting four games with then-No. 6 Houston, piling up 24 runs in the final three games after being shut out in the opener.
Columbia is led offensively by Joey Falcone, a left-handed hitter who leads the nation with a .943 slugging percentage and is tied for seventh in batting average at a .457 clip. Falcone is not the typical college slugger—he is 27 years old and has served active military stints in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Blue Devils will do their best to keep the Brooklyn , N.Y., native in check by pitching him carefully within the strike zone and trying to limit their mistakes with runners on base.
The Lions—coming off back-to-back Ivy League championships—should provide a stiffer challenge for Duke than their fellow Ivy League member Yale, which the Blue Devils routed 13-3 March 10. Pollard is close with Columbia head coach Brett Boretti, and noted that Boretti is very excited about the potential for his squad this year.
“He really likes his club offensively, and they’ve got some power,” Pollard said. “They’ve been the team to beat in the Ivy League for the past couple years. They’ve been to back-to-back NCAA tournaments and he feels like this is maybe the best team he’s had.”
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