On a windy and rainy Tuesday night, Duke moved its win streak to five games, taking down premier mid-major East Carolina in a midweek matchup.
The Blue Devils were able to respond to a big Pirate first inning and lean on a strong performance from the bullpen in order to hold the visitors at bay in the 6-4 victory.
“I thought it was a complete team performance. We got great production up and down the lineup again, a lot of guys stepped up on the mound," head coach Chris Pollard said. “That was a terrific outing by Ryan Calvert, and I can't say enough about the job that James Tallon did to come in, get us off the field [and] have that emphatic eighth. It’s great to see him looking like the James Tallon that we've seen be an All-American here.”
Not until the bottom of the eighth did Pollard’s team get some serious movement after a cold middle stretch. A leadoff walk from AJ Gracia gave way to a single by Wallace Clark that put runners on the corners with nobody out. Another walk issued to Jake Hyde added a little extra pressure after two straight outs, and reliever Lance Williams could not close an at-bat on Tyler Albright as the Blue Devils walked in another run.
That play blew the top off of tension that had been boiling all night, as Pollard and Pirate coach Cliff Godwin both came out of the dugout with choice words for the other. Eventually, both coaches were ejected.
East Carolina was able to get out of the inning with an emotionally charged strikeout to strand the bases loaded, but it could not convert in the top of the ninth. Reliable Reid Easterly came in to pick up the save for the Blue Devils, giving it a marquee midweek win over a perennial powerhouse and building on momentum from a sweep at Virginia.
“That's probably as good of a Tuesday night baseball game as there was in college baseball tonight. It's a lot of fun. It's a good rivalry. They've got a great fan base. I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for their program. And it's always a hotly contested affair and an emotional ball game when the two clubs get together,” Pollard said.
Freshman Max Stammel took the mound for Duke to start, and the Pirates’ classic small-ball approach seemed to bother the youngster from the jump. After issuing a leadoff single, the Dallas native gave away a walk to Dixon Williams before Colby Wallace bunted the pair of East Carolina runners over; Wallace almost snuck his way to first as Stammel hesitated on his decision to throw it to first base.
A RBI single and stolen base chased the freshman out of the game after recording just two outs; junior Gabe Nard came in to try and steady the early shakiness. Nard surrendered another run before getting the final out.
Duke seemed just as adept at taking advantage of East Carolina’s mistakes in the first, though. Pirate starter Jake Hunter opened the game with seven straight balls and eventually walked both hitters, and a Ben Miller double that the right fielder lost in the lights cut the lead in half. Macon Winslow tried to find the same luck as Miller — the ball went to practically the same spot in right — but East Carolina had learned its lesson. The sac fly still made it 2-2 after the opening frame.
The Blue Devils eventually found another run in the bottom of the third, but not without some serious resistance. Jake Berger knocked a double that almost had the Pirate right fielder cast as the next Superman, and Miller followed it up with another two-bagger that barely got over the left fielder’s head.
The narrow misses continued to bite East Carolina. Those almost-catches allowed for another Winslow sac fly, and an errant throw by the second baseman in the middle of some positive Duke at-bats led to two more runs and a 5-2 lead for the home team in the bottom of the fourth.
The Blue Devil bullpen did an excellent job stabilizing the game after the rocky first frame, as Nard and Calvert both went two or more innings without allowing a run. In fact, the Pirates only got two runners on base from the second to fifth inning — and one of them reached on an error. Besides that mistake, the defense behind them was also excellent, highlighted by a Miller double play in which he turned a rocket at the hot corner into two outs.
“We knew it was gonna be a bullpen day. We tried to get two innings out of Max Stammel but felt like with the spot we were in, it was the right decision to make a change and go to the right-hander,” Pollard said. “Gabe [Nard] got us off the field, got us two clean behind it, and then everybody else from that point just kind of stepped up, did their job.”
But in the top of the seventh, the Pirates finally shot back. Leadoff man Braden Burress crushed a ball from Kyle Johnson over the left-field wall after an opening single from Kenan Bowman, and East Carolina was suddenly down just a tally. Johnson was tagged for another double as the ball was mishandled in center field, giving the Pirates a key opportunity to notch another run while the two-way sophomore was yanked in favor of Tallon.
The Arlington, Va., native emphatically got out of the spot with two consecutive strikeouts, allowing the Blue Devils to protect their slim lead.
The Duke offense could not find anything in the middle innings either. Twice, the Blue Devils had a runner reach first just to be picked off. The fact that East Carolina used some of its top relievers in this midweek contest certainly did not help.
Up next, Duke will play host to N.C. State for a weekend series.
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