Had Andrew Abbott still been on his regular season routine, Tuesday would have been a bullpen day for the lefty.
But the regular season, of course, is over.
The Cavaliers entered Tuesday’s ACC Tournament opener against Virginia Tech knowing that the loser would have no shot of advancing beyond pool play. The short turnaround after last weekend’s series at Boston College meant none of the pitchers in UVa’s weekend rotation, including Abbott, would be available to start against the Hokies. The Virginia coaching staff would have to lean on its bullpen and play the matchups to get through nine frames.
That’s how Abbott wound up throwing one inning of the 3-2 victory. He was one of four pitchers the Wahoos used in relief of starter Zach Messinger, who pitched into the sixth. None of those four relievers threw more than an inning. They combined for 3.2 scoreless frames.
“If you look at us all year, that’s kind of how our staff rolls,” said Messinger (3-1), who earned the win after giving up Tech’s two runs on four hits, with six strikeouts and two walks.
He got things rolling by striking out the side in the first. Making his first career ACC Tournament appearance, the third-year right-hander only allowed three base-runners through the first five innings. By that point, Messinger had been spotted a 3-0 lead on a sacrifice fly by Jake Gelof in the second inning, then a long two-run home run by Kyle Teel in the third that reached the mezzanine beyond the low-level bleachers in right field at Truist Field.
“What Virginia baseball has been ever since I was following them, when I was young and in high school and getting recruited, was that we were going to have a good offensive approach,” Messinger said. “That’s how we got that sac fly. And then Kyle Teel, when he finds a pitch he likes he doesn’t miss it.
“Getting those three runs obviously calms you down a little bit,” he added. “But then I think, not that it’s pressure, but the onus is on me to go out there and post zeros like we did.”
Messinger took a shutout into the sixth when it was broken up by a two-run homer by Tech’s Tanner Schobel cut the UVa’s lead back to one run. The HR ended Messinger’s day after a career-long 5.1 innings of two-run baseball.
“There’s no question that he was the right guy to start today,” UVa coach Brian O’Connor said. “He was in complete control of the game, made big pitches when he needed to and really got us off to a great start.”
With the next three hitters in Tech’s lineup all left-handed, O’Connor’s first bullpen move was to Brandon Neeck, the pitcher he has leaned on in key left-on-left matchups all season. Neeck hit the first batter he faced then gave up a single but came back to get a double play that retired the side and stranded the tying run in scoring position.
In the seventh, O’Connor turned to his most consistent reliever. Blake Bales again did his part against the Hokies, striking out a pair and surrendering just a two-out walk in a scoreless frame that lowered his season ERA to 0.47 in 38.2 innings.
It was Neeck’s fourth hold out of the bullpen this spring and the team-leading seventh for Bales.
“Those guys have been doing it for us all year,” O’Connor said.
But it was still a one-run game going into the eighth. The Hokies were coming back around to the top of the lineup, with four of their first five batters all lefties. O’Connor turned to Abbott, the ace of the pitching staff who had successfully transitioned from the bullpen to the weekend rotation this spring. A day earlier, after going 7-5 with a 2.87 ERA and striking out a league-high 126 hitters in 13 starts during the regular season, Abbott had become the first UVa pitcher in five years to earn first-team All-ACC.
“I talked to him,” O’Connor recalled. “He said, ‘Coach, I’d rather throw an inning in the game than a side bullpen.’ So we did that.”
Abbott worked around a one-out single by the right-handed hitting Schobel to keep the Hoos in front by a run. He retired the three lefties he faced, including an eight-pitch showdown against fellow first-team All-ACC selection Gavin Cross that ended with a deep fly ball to left field. Abbott threw just 15 pitches, 10 of them for strikes.
O’Connor made one more unexpected pitching move in the ninth, going with fourth-year right-hander Kyle Whitten to finish the game. Whitten entered with nine career saves but all nine came when he was a sophomore in 2019. Again, the decision paid off as Whitten retired the side on nine pitches to earn career save number 10.
Afterward, O’Connor credited his pitching staff for their team effort.
“No matter what the situation is, I think these guys are playing with an extreme amount of confidence and belief in themselves and their teammates,” he said, “that no matter what the situation is they can come through.”
The Hokies and Notre Dame, the ACC’s regular season champion, will now play what amounts to a meaningless game at 3 p.m. Wednesday. The Wahoos have two days off to rest that pitching staff before facing Notre Dame at 11 a.m. Friday.
The winner of that game will earn their three-team pool’s spot in Saturday’s ACC semifinals.
Notre Dame roughed up the UVa pitching staff during a three-game sweep in Charlottesville back in mid-March. The Hoos posted an 8.33 team ERA that weekend. They’re eager for a chance at some redemption.
“We’re going to be ready,” Messinger said. “We’re excited for Notre Dame. This is exactly what we wanted. We wanted to play the best teams in this tournament, and we want to show what we’re capable of. That we can win this whole thing.”
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