Sophomore Graeme Stinson has had an up-and-down career on the mound so far for the Blue Devils, but Tuesday afternoon may have been his highest of highs so far.
Stinson retired all nine batters he faced and struck out seven to earn the win in a 3-2 victory for No. 21 Duke against Yale at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. After scoring two runs in the first inning and tacking on an insurance run with a home run by senior Jack Labosky, the Blue Devils survived a rally by the Bulldogs in the eighth inning to hold on for the victory.
Duke's bats finally came alive a day later with a 10-2 victory against Yale Wednesday.
"I just focused on pounding the zone. I’ve been working on a couple other secondary pitches, like two-seam, cutter," Stinson said after Tuesday's win. "It was just fun to go out there and compete, use all your stuff that you’ve been working on every single day when you play catch and you show up to the field."
Duke (14-3) started off the scoring in the first inning, with a leadoff base hit by Jimmy Herron and a sinking liner by Zack Kone that was misjudged by center fielder Tim DeGraw putting runners on second and third. Yale pitcher Eric Brodkowitz balked one run in, and freshman Michael Rothenberg slapped a single into right field to score Kone and put the Blue Devils in front by two.
Both offenses went quiet for the next several innings, though. After Alex Boos hit a two-out single in the second inning, Duke pitchers retired 16 straight Bulldogs, but the Blue Devils also went without a hit in frames four through six.
"I don’t know if it was as much us as it was them. I thought they pitched really well in the middle innings," Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. "Their guy settled in and threw a really good ballgame, and I thought we hit some balls hard right at people. We had some good at-bats—we just didn’t have a lot to show for it."
Freshman Bryce Jarvis started for the Blue Devils and threw three scoreless innings before Stinson took the mound for the middle three frames.
In his sixth appearance of the season, Stinson showed impressive command of both his 94 mile-per-hour fastball and his offspeed pitches, keeping Yale's hitters off balance and throwing it by them when they weren't prepared for the heat.
"The first couple outings I had this season, I gave up a couple home runs, and we kind of looked at some data," Stinson said. "We were looking at what can we do to keep throwing fastballs but change the outcome. What can we do to get some later movement on it, throw guys off a little bit more, and started to implement the two-seam and the cutter?"
Labosky stopped the quiet spell with a home run that hit the grass under the bull on the sign overlooking the Blue Monster in left field, providing an insurance run that wound up being crucial.
Sophomore Matt Mervis—who replaced Stinson in the seventh inning—walked two batters in the eighth before exiting, and reliever Ethan DeCaster hit DeGraw with a pitch to allow the Bulldogs (2-9) to load the bases without recording a hit.
Yale finally had a two-out breakthrough with a two-run single by Simon Whiteman to trim Duke's lead to one, but with two runners on, Benny Wanger hit a routine chopper to second base to end the threat. DeCaster stayed on the mound for a relatively uneventful ninth inning to record the save.
Wednesday's contest was far more comfortable for the Blue Devils, who enjoyed a stellar start from Bill Chillari and jumped out to a 6-0 lead by the end of the fifth inning. Chris Proctor and Kennie Taylor each slapped three hits from the bottom of the order, and Labosky added two doubles.
Duke went deep into its bullpen to once again hold the Bulldogs to two runs, their 10th game in a row this season surrendering three or fewer runs.
The Blue Devils will wrap up their long homestand with an ACC series against Miami this weekend.
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