Richmond was silenced by a gem from Blue Devil starting pitcher Dennis O’Grady and fell at Duke, 7-0, Sunday in the rubber-match of a three-game season-opening series in Durham, N.C.
O’Grady fanned 10 in seven shutout innings and scattered just five hits in the winning effort for the Blue Devils (2-1).
Richmond (1-2) collected six hits, including two more from sophomore Jacob Mayers, and had the lead-off runners on in the second, third, fourth and sixth innings but could not push anything across.
Mayers had a pair of doubles Sunday and finished the weekend hitting seven-for-13 (.538), with three doubles, Saturday’s game-winning RBI and three runs.
It was a pitchers’ duel early as rookie righty Andrew Brockett gave the Spiders a quality debut by allowing just two earned runs on five hits with five punch-outs over six innings of work.
The game was scoreless through two, but Duke manufactured a run in the third, seizing the lead on Chris Marconcini’s RBI single. The Blue Devils made it a 3-0 game in the fifth when Joe Pedevillano scored on a wild pitch and Marcus Stroman later came home on a passed ball.
Duke added four runs off the Richmond bullpen late in the game.
The first two games of the series were nip-and-tuck affairs with Duke walking off with a 6-5 comeback win Friday and the Spiders battling back for a 9-8 victory Saturday.
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