The seventh-inning stretch is a timeless baseball tradition, but the Blue Devils were already stretched pretty thin by the time it came around Saturday.
No. 14 Virginia used a three-run seventh inning to pull ahead and knock off Duke 7-6, earning its second straight victory at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. The Blue Devils held leads of 1-0 and 4-1 in the early innings, but the Cavaliers came back to tie the game each time on the strength of their top three hitters—Adam Haseley, Ernie Clement and Matt Thaiss—who went 7-for-15 with four runs scored and four RBIs.
Sophomore Jack Labosky made things interesting in the bottom of the ninth, launching a two-run homer—his fourth round-tripper of the year—off the famous bull sign over the Blue Monster in left field. But Virginia closer Alec Bettinger shut the door by striking out Griffin Conine and inducing a weak comebacker from Zach Kone to end the game.
“I thought we had strung together good at-bats [in the ninth] starting with Max [Miller] and his leadoff single. Then Jimmy [Herron] hit a ball well and Jack, it was good to see him turn on the ball like that,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “Bettinger kind of settled in and made some pitches. We may have swung at ball three there after Jack’s at-bat, but that’s a learning moment for a young player, and we’ll get better with that.”
Virginia (11-4, 2-0 in the ACC) grabbed the lead for good in the seventh as Pollard ended starter Trent Swart’s day after 79 pitches and turned to his bullpen in a 4-4 ballgame. Ernie Clement got things started with a perfectly placed bunt down the third-base line, and Thaiss followed up with a single—his third hit of the afternoon—against Blue Devil reliever Mitch Stallings. Sophomore Pavin Smith laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the runners to second and third, and Pollard made another pitching change.
He summoned junior Karl Blum, but the Toms River, N.J., native could not get out of the jam. A wild pitch brought home the Cavaliers’ first run of the inning, and two more crossed the plate on a Kevin Doherty sacrifice fly and an infield single by left fielder Ryan Karstetter.
Duke (8-7, 0-2) threatened to make a comeback in the eighth as Ryan Day stepped to the plate with two on and one out, representing the tying run. But bounced a grounder to Virginia third baseman Justin Novak, who stepped on the bag and fired across the diamond to complete the double play and preserve the Cavaliers’ 7-4 advantage.
“Probably the biggest run in the inning is the last run in the inning,” Pollard said. “Obviously it happens because of the errant throw in the outfield. If we’re in that situation where they have second and third and one out, we just have to try to minimize it. Try to get off the field. Even if a single run scores in that situation, we’ve got plenty of time to have an answer to that. We can’t sort of let that one run score and then let it turn into a bigger inning than that.”
After getting blanked by Cavalier ace Connor Jones Friday night, the Blue Devil offense wasted little time getting to work against Virginia freshman Daniel Lynch. Duke had a scoring chance in the bottom of the first following a scorching two-out double from Herron, but Labosky flied out to right to end the threat.
The Blue Devils threatened again in the second frame, and this time they broke through to snap a 16-inning scoreless streak. Kone launched a soaring double high off the Blue Monster in left-center field—the first extra-base hit of his career—and came around to score when the Cavaliers misplayed Evan Dougherty’s sharp grounder to the right side. Duke nearly tacked on more runs in the frame, but a diving catch by Haseley in center field squashed that rally.
Swart could not make that lead stand up for long, though, as a leadoff walk in the top of the third came back to bite him. He issued a free pass to Karstetter, who moved around to third on a pair of weak ground outs. Swart had a chance to escape the inning unscathed, but Haseley laced the first pitch he saw right back up the middle, plating Karstetter and tying the game at 1-1.
“We know that they’re a first-pitch aggressive team and that’s kind of one of the things that we preach, is get that early contact,” Swart said. “So if they’re going to be swinging early, I want to keep my pitch count down and everything, but balls were just falling and going through holes.”
The Blue Devils bounced back in the fourth inning to re-take the lead, and this time it was Lynch who was plagued by the free pass. The 6-foot-4 southpaw loaded the bases by walking three Duke batters—the last two with two outs—and Day made him pay with a liner to center that dropped just in front of Haseley and gave the Blue Devils a 3-1 lead.
Lynch’s day was done after he issued another walk to Duke third baseman Max Miller. The Cavaliers turned to right-hander Tyler Shambora to navigate out of trouble, but he, too, could not find the strike zone and forced in another Blue Devil run by walking Herron.
But once again, Swart could not come up with a shutdown inning as the Virginia bats started to warm up. Three straight hard-hit singles plated one run for the Cavaliers, and brought slugging catcher Matt Thaiss to the dish with two on and one out. Thaiss—who entered the day with a robust .547 slugging percentage and finished 3-for-5—promptly blasted a first-pitch double into the right-center field gap to drive in two runs to knot the score at four apiece.
“I definitely need to do a better job of getting shutdown innings. That’s kind of something Coach Pollard always talks about. As a team, as a pitcher, it’s good to always throw up a zero,” Swart said. “They’re a good club and they come out swinging it all the time, but as a pitcher I have to go out and make sure those are the innings that I really hold them down.”
Brian McAfee will take the ball for the Blue Devils Sunday at noon as Duke tries to salvage the final game of the series. First pitch was moved up by an hour with a threat of rain in the forecast.
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