Baseball Update

03/05/2015WufpackerACC Baseball NC State NC State Baseball16

With Clemson arriving in town this weekend to kick off both teams’ conference schedule, it seemed like a good time to do a very quick and very superficial review of the Pack9’s season thus far. I’ll talk a (very) little bit about Clemson toward the end, but for various reasons there will be no full on preview of Clemson.

The Pack has managed to scrape together an early 7-3 record, in spite of the weather being a ~~pain in the ass~~ negative factor more often than not. It’s actually a bit of a miracle they’ve been able to get 10 games in, and more than a few of those were the results of scrambling and/or reschedules. And some of the reschedules got rescheduled, or out and out scrapped.

All meteorological things considered….well, it could have been worse (but not much).

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The Good

In the pre-season article, I talked about the need for improved offense from both Logan Ratledge and Preston Palmeiro. Mission accomplished, at least so far.

Ratledge and Palmeiro have been the lynchpin of the Pack’s offense thus far, currently running 1st (Ratledge, .400) and 2nd (Palmeiro, .395) in batting average. Palmeiro leads the team in RBI(14), Ratledge leads the team in runs scored(10). Additionally, each is currently sporting an OPS (onbase plus slgpct) above 1.000. Not too shabby.

Jake Fincher and Ryne Willard are both hovering around the .300 mark as well, though each has room for improvement, especially with respect to run production.

From the mound, there have been some especially encouraging performances.

Brad Stone has mostly settled into a middle relief role, and has yet to yield a run in 8+ innings. Freshman Brian Brown has won both of his starts and is carrying an ERA of 1.50 in 12 innings of work.

But the biggest buzz is coming from the bullpen. Sophomore all-name team nominee Johnny Piedmonte has been nearly unhittable, with 8Ks against OBBs. Batters are averaging only .143 against him.

On the other hand, freshman Tommy DeJuneas has been literally unhittable so far this season, with the only batter reaching safely against him doing so via a walk. He’s K’d 13 of the 22 batters he’s faced on the season, including 6 of 10 Wednesday night vs App State. The Pack would come from behind to take the 6-4 win vs the Mountaineers, with DeJuneas getting his first collegiate W going 3.1 innings of hitless ball.

Chance Shepard deserves a particular mention here in “The Good” as well. With Andrew Knizner taking over behind the plate and with a few folks ahead of Shepard for outfield duties, he has been largely relegated to a part time catcher/DH. He could have hung his head, but instead he’s managed a .286 avg with an OPS of 1.015 and a HR. (NOTE: Shepard’s numbers I’ve just quoted were before Wednesday’s game…He had an 0-fer nite unfortunately, obviously dropping his numbers considerably due to a limited number of at bats on the season. But I made the editorial call not to change them in the text of this write up because the point still stands. Very proud of Chance Shepard and how he’s handled things so far.)

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The Bad

The loss to U.Albany.

The Pack’s other losses have been to Coastal Carolina and Charlotte, neither of which is shameful. But losing to the Danes (1-5), let alone giving up 9 runs to them, even with all the weather issues, is a bad loss.

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The Ugly

The weather, plain and simple.
Honorable mention: The loss to U.Albany was pretty damn fugly.

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ACC Play Begins

As I mentioned at the outset, Clemson (7-4) comes to The Doak this weekend for a 3 game set which kicks off conference play for both teams.

The Tiggers have had a few stumbles early, but as always they’re a good team, currently on the fringes of the Top 25. They dropped 2 of 3 to WVU to open the season, lost to Winthrop on Tuesday, but also managed to take 2 of 3 from SCar.

They hit well as a team (.299) but their strength is pitching (2.18 team ERA). They hold opponents to .215 batting, and fewer than 3 runs per game.

Elsewhere in the ACC this weekend:

Miami at Louisville
Duke at Carolina
ND at GT
Pitt at UVa
VT at Wake
BC at FSU

Weekend Schedule – Clemson vs NC State

Friday, March 6 – 3:00pm*
Saturday, March 7 – 3:00pm*
Sunday, March 8 – 1:00pm

* Revised start times for both Friday and Saturday (possibly subject to further revision pending winter’s last gasp on Thursday night/Friday).

All 3 games are scheduled to be televised via ESPN3

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For Fun

The Pack crushed ECU Tuesday night 7-0, which is always fun regardless of sport. Logan Ratledge got the scoring started in the 5th by tattooing an 0-1 pitch into the Lee/Sullivan back yard…