Pack Nine Takes Doubleheader From VT to Win Series

Baseball14

The Wolfpack baseball team recovered from a Friday loss to the Hokies to take the series 2 games to 1 with a doubleheader sweep on Sunday. The first game, well, looked like football with a 19-18 final score. Pratt Maynard paced the offense, going 3-4 with 4 RBIs. The two teams combined for 11 errors, 7 by the Hokies and 4 by the Pack. Jake Buchanan got roughed up a bit, giving up 10 earned runs in 5 1/3 innings pitched. Sam Brown picked up the win in relief.

The second game of the twinbill did not start out well for the Wolfpack. Starter Zak Sinclair failed to make it out of the first inning, yielding 5 earned runs in 2/3 of an inning. VT added a run in the second to push the advantage to 6-0, and the Pack began to slowly chip away. State scored once in the second and plated 3 in the sixth to make it a 6-4 ballgame. Then in the bottom of the 8th, State made it 6-5 when Pat Ferguson stepped up to the plate as a pinch hitter with a runner on base. Ferguson connected for his second homer of the season, and the 7-6 score stood up. Alex Sogard pitched 3 scoreless innings of relief to pick up his third win of the season.

The sweep puts the Wolfpack at 15-12 on the season, 5-7 in the ACC. Up next is a Wednesday matchup with ECU followed by a trip north to take on Boston College in the weekend series. This is a big series for the Wolfpack; they need to notch their 3rd consecutive series win to pull their conference record closer to .500 after a slow start. Of course, a sweep would be ideal (duh), but I’ll take 2-1 series wins. Still, this series marks roughly the midpoint of the overall season, and at this point there is substantial work to be done as far as the postseason is concerned. The good news is the young offense continues to show signs of improvement, and this trend will need to continue, with some tough series to come later in the year against UNC, FSU and Clemson.

About Dr. BadgerPack

NCSU Class of 99 and PhD University of Wisconsin, 2006... Which should adequately explain the screen name I chose at 2am one Saturday...

Baseball

14 Responses to Pack Nine Takes Doubleheader From VT to Win Series

  1. packalum44 03/30/2009 at 8:39 AM #

    Good wins. Dr…do you think the addition of Russell Wilson will inject some much needed offense and confidence into this team? Will his leadership and presence be as influential on the baseball team as it was on the F-Ball team?

  2. BJD95 03/30/2009 at 8:46 AM #

    Let’s hope they can claw their way back to the NCAAs. Looks like they are at least on track to make the ACCT, which looked doubtful a few weeks ago.

    Stay healthy, RW!

  3. Dr. BadgerPack 03/30/2009 at 8:49 AM #

    Russell needs to get his swing back, but I do think that once the rust wears off he’ll provide a nice presence in the lineup. Where he should provide a lot of help is advising the younger players on how to handle big pressure situations. It won’t be as big a presence as football though, as he is not the type of player currently that can single handedly control a baseball game (like, say, a Buster Posey or Dustin Ackley). He’s not that type of power threat.

  4. gcpack 03/30/2009 at 9:13 AM #

    Does anyone understand why the baseball team has played so poorly? At the beginning of the season the coach said they were young but he thought they would have a good team. Yet when you lose the series to Maryland at home I have serious concerns. Maryland has been the consistent dog of the ACC for many years. It’s program is one of those that all schools can point to as a probable win. Then you add losses to the weekly warmup schools like Liberty and Elon. They may have good programs but we aren’t supposed to lose to them.

    Unless they have really underachieved I see no way of making the NCAAs this year.
    Which team do we have?

  5. packalum44 03/30/2009 at 9:22 AM #

    ^ I’m not the best person to answer that but I think we have the type of team that will come together down the stretch. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think we had a top-15 recruiting class this past year. These guys’ impact will be realized later this season and next year. It seems that pitchers especially have a steeper learning curve than other freshmen.

  6. howlie 03/30/2009 at 9:44 AM #

    Just want to say that I have almost no interest in reading an article on baseball except to see if Russell Wilson’s name is mentioned–if he’s playing–and how our ‘football knee’ is doing.

    Interesting that although unmentioned in the blurb on the game, the first post is wondering the same thing.

    I really do wish the baseball team well–would love to hear them winning the championship–by my ‘spring and summer heart and mind’ belongs to the football team; and anything that may develop in basketball news.

  7. Dr. BadgerPack 03/30/2009 at 10:11 AM #

    My apologies for not mentioning Wilson in the writeup; I did that in about 5 minutes this morning and decided to highlight the major contributions in the two games (and mention Buchanan’s inexplicable shelling). Wilson was 0-2 in the second game and was lifted for a pinch hitter. It’s going to take some time for him to get his swing back.

    As far as young hitters go… there is a massive difference between pitching seen at the high school versus the college level (and a similar, if not larger leap from college to the minors, etc.). The biggest difference is in the breaking pitches, and the ability of the pitchers to locate. Most of the young guys are steadily improving, so I think eventually they’ll be OK.

    packalum: Last years recruiting class was pretty solid like you said. This years early recruiting class was #7 last time I looked.

    I can’t explain dropping the series to Maryland. Elon this year is sitting at 14-8 and #24 in the RPI. Liberty is 19-5 with a RPI of 49 (by comparison, State is 99 in the RPI– barf). If I remember correctly, Liberty threw their Friday starter in our midweek matchup. I’m not too worried about losing those games. State will need to win series against the upper tier of the ACC that remains on the schedule and they should be fine.

    For those interested in the RPI, this is one that I routinely cited last year: http://www.boydsworld.com/baseball/rpi/currentrpi.html

  8. GAWolf 03/30/2009 at 10:26 AM #

    Big game Wednesday at home against ECU. We’re heading out to catch it. Hopefully some of you all can to.

  9. Classof89 03/30/2009 at 4:01 PM #

    Baseball so far is the biggest disappointment compared to preseason expectations since last year’s hoops squad. Lets hope the hitting comes around, but that doesn’t explain the piss-poor performance by the middle relief staff.

  10. TheCOWDOG 03/30/2009 at 4:07 PM #

    Dr F’em Bucky: “As far as young hitters go… there is a massive difference between pitching seen at the high school versus the college level (and a similar, if not larger leap from college to the minors, etc.). The biggest difference is in the breaking pitches, and the ability of the pitchers to locate. Most of the young guys are steadily improving, so I think eventually they’ll be OK.”

    Just about nailed it. The chasm between college pitching and high school pitching is far greater than college to pro.

    At the pro level it is the pitch 1/2 inch off the black, wicked bad sliders and pitching IQ that are the difference. Which the good DR. pretty much summarized.

    The transition from high school is all of the above plus the 90 MPH fastball that most teams have at least one of.

    19-18. Gotta love metalurgic technology. That and the jet stream at Doak.

    Damn, I used to love that SWesterly push. Would have loved to hit with the fences 10 shorter as they are now too.

    We always got a kick out of watching an opposing outfielder try to handle a big fly in the stream and the old frickin’ wooden snow fence at the same time.

    Wasn’t so much fun though when it was you. I think I still had the rogue splinter or two rise to the surface 10 yrs. after the fact.

    When our pitching gets right, we’ll be just fine.

    BTW, don’t think for a minute that RW can carry this team. Baseball just ain’t built that way.

    He’s just another cog in the wheel.

    DBP: Thanks for the input as always Cowdog… Good to get the first hand perspective in these baseball threads

  11. TheCOWDOG 03/30/2009 at 5:11 PM #

    ^DBP…Think anyone else would get the…..Bucky thing?

    At any rate, you can count on me to chime in when I catch it, if you swear to me that you’ll try and seek out The Happy Schnapps Combo that I brought up not so long ago.

    It kinda closes some circles…ya know? Circles, much like me tryin’ to flag one down at Doak. 🙂

  12. john of sparta 03/30/2009 at 10:04 PM #

    quoting: “much needed offense and confidence…get his
    swing back…played so poorly…next year…no interest
    in reading an article about baseball…0-2 in the second
    game…baseball so far is the biggest disappointment…
    when our pitching gets right…”

  13. packalum44 03/31/2009 at 7:59 AM #

    Cowdog and Dr.

    Thanks for your input on RW. I didn’t think he could carry the team either but wanted to get others’ opinion who have more knowledge of the game. Certainly the QB position is the most influential position in just about any sport. There are times though that B-ball “teams” outperform other teams with more talent. Look at the FL Marlins versus the Yankees. If I’m not mistaken, the Marlins won the World Series one year with their team salary being less than what A-Rod made by himself. Let’s hope we can mesh like this down the stretch.

  14. Dr. BadgerPack 03/31/2009 at 8:22 AM #

    packalum44- One thing the Wolfpack has lacked for a while is the big, impact bat that can carry a team for short stretches. Aaron Bates is the most recent player who comes to mind that was close to this level (I think he ended up being drafted by the RedSox). The Marlins payroll was pretty dang low that year. It may not have been less than A-Rod’s, but it was close. That would have been the 2003 Marlins team. A quick glance says if you remove Ivan Rodriguez’s 10 million, A-Rod clobbers the remainder of the payroll. The collection of young talent on that particular team was really, really good.

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/FLA/2003.shtml

    Cowdog- Looked up The Happy Schanpps Combo… I’ve got 4 words for you: “We’re the Minnesota Vikings”… Pretty good stuff.

Leave a Reply