After his team finished its job by beating Virginia Tech last night in Blacksburg, sending the rowdy crowd home disappointed in the process, Brian O’Connor had a chance once things calmed down to start looking at results from around the rest of the league and assess where the Wahoos stood.
Virginia’s head coach discovered that, as has been the case for most of the season, it was another unpredictable weekend of baseball in the ACC.
“It’s just amazing,” O’Connor said Monday morning. “You look up, all of a sudden Clemson sweeps Louisville last weekend. Notre Dame sweeps North Carolina. It’s just all over the place.”
O’Connor says this is the deepest he can remember the league being from top to bottom. For the first time in ACC history, teams began the season with 36 conference games on the schedule. It’s been a roller coaster ride since late February, as illustrated by the weekly D1Baseball.com national rankings. Every team in the league but Clemson has spent at least one week in the Top 25 at some point.
“It’s every weekend; it’s every game. Anybody can beat anybody,” O’Connor said. “It comes down to, you’ve got to play your best. If you don’t pitch well—and we didn’t pitch well enough in Game 2—you lose the game. You don’t get away with anything.”
Louisville is the only school to be ranked all season but dropped out of the Top 10 for the first time on Monday, falling to No. 15 after getting swept by the Tigers in Clemson. It was the first time the Cards had been swept since 2011 when they were still part of the Big East.
Notre Dame jumped to No. 7 in the new D1Baseball rankings on Monday by taking all three from UNC in South Bend. The Fighting Irish (21-8) remain the only team in the league yet to lose a conference series this year. The sweep also moved the Irish three games in front of Louisville (14-9) for the top spot in the ACC standings.
No. 17 Pitt (14-10) which, because of COVID-19 protocols last played a game on April 18, remains atop the Coastal Division and in third place in the league, 4.5 games behind the Irish. At No. 18, Florida State gives the ACC four ranked teams again this week. The Seminoles are part of a three-way tie for fourth place in the league with Clemson and Georgia Tech (all three are 15-12 in the league), five back of Notre Dame.
At 16-14, the Hokies are a half-game behind that fourth-place cluster but headed in the wrong direction. Tech was 14-7 in the league and had a two-game lead in the Coastal Division (and a six-game lead on the Wahoos) after taking all three games at Wake Forest in mid-April. Tech now has just two wins in nine ACC games since that weekend.
The Hoos have spent the past month closing the gap in the conference standings. Heading into April, Virginia was the only team that hadn’t won an ACC series. The Wahoos have won four of five series since to climb back to 13-17 in the league. That record puts UVa a game in front of Duke (9-15) and a game behind UNC (14-16) for 11th place in the ACC standings. Like the Hoos, Carolina is off this weekend. Duke plays three at Louisville.
With a normal 30-game ACC schedule, Virginia would be finished with conference play. Instead, the Cavaliers will return from its nine-day layoff for final exams - that break begins after Tuesday’s non-conference game at home against VCU - to what appears to be a favorable conference schedule. UVa’s final two conference weekends are at home against Wake Forest, then at Boston College. As of Monday, those are the two teams at the bottom of the ACC standings.
Wake (7-19) dropped two of three at home against NC State this past weekend to fall a half-game behind the Eagles at the bottom of the league. BC (8-19) climbed out of the basement by taking two of three from Miami, outscoring the Hurricanes 25-8. It was the Eagles’ first series win since taking two of three at Duke to open ACC play at the end of February.
The Demon Deacons don’t have an ACC series on the schedule this weekend but will face Elon on Sunday. BC is scheduled to travel to Pitt.
By winning two in Blacksburg, Virginia jumped from No. 50 to No. 37 in the NCAA’s updated RPI rankings. That updated RPI ranks fourth among ACC teams, though it’s not clear how much weight the NCAA selection committee will put in that metric this year, with most leagues limiting non-conference games, and some only permitting teams to play in-conference opponents.
The Wahoos still need to win five of their final six ACC games to finish the regular season at 18-18 in the conference. That has been the team’s target since the Georgia Tech series in early April. Four wins would get them to 17-19, which may be enough to get Virginia back to an NCAA regional. Anything less and the bubble likely bursts.
“I know this: We’ve got to win the last two series that we play. Or some combination of that, at a minimum,” O’Connor said on Monday. “I’m not the selection committee, but I also, I’d like to not leave it in somebody else’s hands. And I think if we do that, what we will have done down the back half of the stretch of the league will be pretty impressive. But certainly that won’t be easy to do.”
“Exceptional” Weekend on the Hill for the Hoos
Virginia Tech came into this weekend’s series with the Hokies having scored 256 runs on the season, more than anyone else in the ACC. Tech was averaging almost seven runs per game.
Virginia’s pitching staff limited them to just eight total runs, Tech’s fewest in an ACC weekend this season. Six of those eight came in the second and third innings of Saturday’s 6-3 Tech win. Take away that two-inning stretch, O’Connor said, and his pitching staff was dominant all weekend.
“We pitched as good as you can,” he said. “It was really, really exceptional.”
The Cavaliers got quality starts in both of their wins. On Friday, left-hander Andrew Abbott only gave up one unearned run on four hits, and didn’t walk a batter for the second straight start. He also struck out eight to raise his ACC-leading total to 99 on the season and push the senior past Brandon Creswell into fifth place on the program’s all-time strikeout list, with 264 for his career.
Abbott was named ACC Pitcher of the Week on Monday for that performance against the Hokies.
With the series (and arguably the season) on the line on Sunday night, sophomore lefty Nate Savino had the best start of his college career. He pitched into the eighth inning for the first time as a Hoo, leaving the game after a leadoff double by Tech’s Jack Hurley. Like Abbott, Savino didn’t walk a batter; he was charged with one run on six hits in seven full innings. It was the first quality start of Savino’s career and the first for a UVa starter other than Abbott or Mike Vasil this season.
Both Savino and pitching coach Drew Dickinson have discussed how the sophomore needs to pitch down in the zone consistently to find success. That’s what was working on Sunday. He needed just 65 pitches to get through seven-plus and helped himself by drawing three double-play balls, aided along the way by highlight-worthy diving plays by Zack Gelof at third base and Chris Newell in center field.
“One, it was great to see him pitch such a great, dominant game,” O’Connor said. “And then for him to do it against your rival really is a big step forward for him. There’s different points in guys’ career where they kind of emerge and step forward. I thought last night was one of those nights for Nate Savino.”
O’Connor used five relievers across the weekend: Freshman left-hander Jake Berry on Friday, lefty Brandon Neeck and right-hander Matt Wyatt on Saturday, and righties Blake Bales and Stephen Schoch on Sunday. That group combined to limit the Hokies to five hits and walk four in 9.1 scoreless innings of work.
New Role For Younger Gelof
Versatile freshman Jake Gelof found himself with a new job last week in practice.
With senior Devin Ortiz hampered by a shoulder injury suffered late in last Tuesday’s win against Liberty, Gelof became the Wahoos’ next man up at first base. After practicing at the position for the first time on Wednesday, Gelof started all three games at first in Blacksburg.
“Being in there every day, and being in there every day this weekend in this rival series, I thought he did a nice job,” O’Connor said. “So we’ll continue to look at that.”
Hitting in the eight-spot on Friday, the younger Gelof had a career night in his first start at first base. He went 3-for-6 with a pair of doubles, two runs scored and two RBI—all career highs—in the 18-1 victory.
Prior to that game, Gelof had made five starts in his first UVa season: Three at second base and two in right field, including Tuesday’s game against Liberty. On Monday, O’Connor called him a good athlete who can play either outfield corner, or any infield position but shortstop.
“You recruit guys to have versatility,” O’Connor said. “That’s important, and that’s one of the reasons that we were interested in him, is that we knew that he could bounce around a little bit. When you get in these scenarios where you have guys go down and you kind of need to plug and play, somebody like that can do some different things for you.”
Updates on Ortiz, Michaels
O’Connor said that even with the nine-day break for final exams on the horizon, he expects Ortiz to remain limited to the designated hitter role for the foreseeable future.
Ortiz hurt his shoulder catching a high throw at first base in the top of the ninth inning of last week’s 6-5 win against the Flames. Considered day-to-day going into the weekend in Blacksburg, he didn’t appear to be limited at the plate by the injury.
On Friday night, Ortiz finished 3-for-4 with a pair of runs batted in and three runs scored. After a hitless game on Saturday, his solo homer in the top of the second erased Tech’s early lead on Sunday. He drove in another run with a single to center on a 3-0 count in the seventh inning that extended UVa’s lead to 5-1.
O’Connor was more optimistic that the exams break could benefit fifth-year catcher Logan Michaels, who hurt his hand sliding into home plate in the fifth inning of Friday’s game. Michaels left the game after the play and didn’t appear the rest of the weekend.
“We’ll continue to look at him, but I think the break will help him a lot,” O’Connor said.
Powerful Performance For Teel
With home runs in three of the last four games, first-year catcher Kyle Teel has moved past Ortiz for the team lead with seven on the season. That’s the highest home run total for a Virginia player since 2017, when the Wahoos had three players finish with more: Adam Haseley (14), Pavin Smith (13), and Cam Simmons (nine).
Among first-year UVa players, Teel’s power numbers are even more noteworthy. With those seven dingers, Teel has matched Smith in 2015 and Derek Fisher in 2012 for the most by a freshman over the past 10 seasons. The last time a UVa freshman hit more homers was the 2009 season, when Steven Proscia had 10 and John Hicks gad eight. The school record for home runs by a freshman is 15, by Mark Reynolds in 2002.
All three of Teel’s long balls last week came in clutch spots. Against Liberty, his lead-off shot the opposite way to left field put the Wahoos in front 6-5 in the eighth inning, completing the team’s comeback from an early five-run hole. In Friday’s opener in Blacksburg, he doubled the UVa lead with a three-run homer in the fifth inning. And on Sunday, he went back-to-back with Ortiz in the second inning to put the Hoos in front for good again.
“He’s made an impact for us,” O’Connor said. “He stepped forward, and he’s not afraid of anything. He doesn’t back down from anything. You can see, that’s the way he plays. He plays the game with his heart on the outside of his jersey, and just a very, very emotional, tough player. And that showed out this weekend for sure.”
Teel had at least one hit in all three games at Tech, finishing the weekend 5-for-14 with six RBI and five runs scored. That performance raised his batting average to a UVa-best .310 in 33 games this season. His 25 RBI are now second on the team.
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