The last time Duke played a ranked ACC opponent on the road, it turned its season around with back-to-back wins at then-No. 21 Georgia Tech during the first weekend of April.
This time, the Blue Devils will look to solidify a position in the top 10 of the ACC and bookend the month with marquee series wins.
Duke will take on No. 12 N.C. State in a three-game series at Doak Field at Dail Park in Raleigh, with the first game slated to start Friday at 6:30 p.m. The Blue Devils are 12-5 in April, but the Wolfpack also enter the weekend playing their best baseball of the year with wins in 11 of their last 13 games.
“We always talk about competing against our own standard of excellence and not competing against the opponent or the name on the jersey,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “Our guys need to do what they do well.”
Duke’s weekend rotation will feature graduate students Kellen Urbon, Trent Swart and Brian McAfee on the mound. N.C. State (29-11, 10-6 in the ACC) has varied its Friday night starter in recent weeks, but southpaws Brian Brown and Ryan Williamson have been consistent all year to lock down wins Saturdays and Sundays.
Brown is 5-1 with a 2.60 ERA in 10 starts this season, and Williamson is 7-1 with a 3.12 ERA. Both hurlers average more than one strikeout per inning.
“To a certain degree, [Brown] pitches like a Trent Swart. He’s not overpowering, but he has a terrific changeup, he has a terrific pick move, very good pitchability, and just a guy that knows how to compete and knows how to win,” Pollard said. “I compare Williamson in terms of stuff to Packy Naughton, a pitcher that we saw from Virginia Tech this past Sunday—similar type of delivery, kind of a power type of delivery.”
The Wolfpack rotation will be difficult to crack, but fast starts have lifted the Blue Devils (24-18, 9-12) to several wins in their impressive recent stretch. They scored all four of their runs in Wednesday’s win against N.C. Central in the first inning and tallied 10 runs in the first two innings of a win against Virginia Tech last Saturday, exactly one week after exploding for nine runs in the first two frames of a convincing win against then-No. 1 Miami.
Freshman leadoff hitter Jimmy Herron has reached base safely in 16 straight games and has 15 stolen bases on the year, helping to set the table for the heart of the lineup.
“A lot of that [early scoring] has to do with the guy at the top. Herron has been so good at getting on base that that sort of jump-starts your offense,” Pollard said. “We’ve got some guys there at the top of the lineup that are seeing it well and swinging it well, and that’s allowing us to apply pressure right from the very beginning of the ballgame.”
Duke may need to score some runs early to keep up with N.C. State’s high-powered offense, which is second in the ACC with a .314 team batting average and fifth in the conference with 7.2 runs per game.
Eight regular starters for the Wolfpack bat .297 or better, led by sophomores Evan Mendoza and Josh McLain with averages of .350. N.C. State's lineup has shown it can hit for power too, with 11 home runs from senior designated hitter Chance Shepard.
Urbon, McAfee and Swart have all slowed opposing offenses all season, each posting an ERA better than 3.90, and although Swart struggled initially after returning from an elbow injury that sidelined him for nearly three weeks, he started Wednesday against the Eagles and threw a perfect inning with just 13 pitches to get the win.
“Each outing that he’s returned from the midseason injury, he’s had better command and been sharper,” Pollard said. “He only had one walk in three innings at Virginia Tech, so he was in the zone, and then I thought that [Wednesday] night was a very effective outing, so it’s just in terms of taking the next step forward each time he goes out there.”
If the Wolfpack get to the Blue Devil starting corps to stake themselves to an early lead, Duke will look to recreate the magic from the last time the two teams faced off.
The Blue Devils do not play N.C. State every year since the teams are in different divisions, but Duke pulled off one of the most remarkable comebacks in program history April 13, 2014, against the then-No. 25 Wolfpack. Trailing 10-4 entering the bottom of the eighth inning at home, the Blue Devils scored five runs in the eighth and won the game with two more runs in the ninth to clinch the series and spark a 10-game winning streak.
“Certainly from my perspective, it was one of the [more fun] games that I’ve been a part of since I’ve been here,” Pollard said. “It was an exciting game, but most of the players in both of our programs will not even have been a part of that game, so I don’t know that that game resonates a lot with these current teams.”
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