Harrison Didawick hit two homers, and had two diving catches in left in the ninth inning, to power, and then help preserve, a 5-4 Virginia win over Clemson on Saturday.
“He’s the heart and soul of this group,” first-year UVA coach Chris Pollard gushed over Didawick (.341 BA, .970 OPS, 7 HRs, 37 RBIs) to reporters after the game. “He’s unbelievably tough. He played great defense. He came up with clutch hits. So proud of that dude.”
The clutch everything from Didawick helped #9 UVA (28-13, 12-9 ACC) take the weekend series from the Tigers (25-16, 6-12 ACC), who, on their side of the ledger, could very well be on the outside looking in as far as the NCAA Tournament is concerned.
Weird day at The Dish – when it seemed that anything that got into the air was destined to fly out; the ’Hoos hit four homers, the Tigers two.
There was also a nice catch in right-center by Kyle Johnson, Virginia’s #2 starting pitcher, that robbed Tyler Lichtenberger of what would have been a two-run homer in the top of the seventh.
Johnson (.276 BA, .965 OPS, 5 HRs, 19 RBIs; 0-1, 3.38 ERA, 1.13 WHIP) also had an RBI single in the sixth inning, so, nice weekend for him – 2-for-7 at the plate with the RBI single, robbed a guy of a two-run homer, put in five innings of work in his Game 2 start, allowing one run on four hits, striking out six and walking three.
I liked what I saw from Game 3 starter John Paone (1-2, 5.45 ERA, 1.29 WHIP), the big freshman righty who’s been up and down this season.
Today was the up part of the curve – he struck out seven in 4.1 innings, allowing a run on three hits, consistently hitting 95-97 mph on the gun with the fastball.
“He’s gone through a couple of weeks where he hasn’t gotten a lot of swing and miss on the slider. He and Brady (Kirkpatrick, the UVA pitching coach) literally got in the lab this week, made a really good adjustment,” Pollard said.
“I’m not going to talk about specifics of the adjustment because I don’t want to give anything away, but with the adjustment, really got the shape back on his slider, and it showed up today with a lot of swing and miss,” Pollard said.
Lucas Hartman (8-0, 2.49 ERA, 1.13 WHIP) got the win in relief, despite giving up two runs on five hits in three innings of work.
That Hartman kid is a warrior – his 47 innings this season are second on the staff, and they have come in 23 relief appearances.
I’m more than a bit worried about the closer, Tyler Kapa (1-2, 1.54 ERA, 0.95 WHIP), who got his ninth save, giving up a run on two hits in 1.2 innings of work, but his fastball – usually in the 96-99 mph range – was sitting 91-93 today, and he did get a visit to the mound from the training staff in the ninth before Pollard decided to leave him in to finish out the game.
“Kapa was pitching on fumes a little bit, and BK and I talked about it, do we get him out? And we just said, He’s our best guy, if he feels OK, and he did, he deserves to have the opportunity to go finish,” Pollard said.
I’m not sure about the “pitching on fumes” assessment.
Kapa didn’t pitch in Friday’s 5-1 loss; he went an inning and got the save, on 21 pitches, in the 6-4 win on Thursday.
He needed 37 pitches to get five outs on Saturday.
Sam Harris (.314 BA/1.027 OPS, 12 HRs, 42 RBIs) and Joe Tiroly (.286 BA/.843 OPS, 7 HRs, 39 RBIs) also homered for Virginia.
Tiroly, who had 18 homers last season at Rider, now has four homers in his last nine games, in a stretch that has seen him hitting .342 with a 1.101 OPS.
“He’s our leading hitter during that stretch, and he has really started to heat up,” Pollard said. “Goes back to, we talked about an adjustment that he and (hitting) Coach (Eric) Tyler made. He switched bats, which is a little unusual in the middle of the year, but it’s really quick for him. His defense has been there all year. It’s so underrated and underappreciated. He’s a really good defender.”
Finally, an update from Pollard on the status of shortstop Eric Becker, who was out the last two games with a hand injury, and centerfielder AJ Gracia (concussion protocol), who missed today’s game:
“Yeah, day to day, you know, hopeful-slash-optimistic that they’ll be ready Wednesday.”
Virginia hosts Liberty (27-10, RPI: 21) at The Dish on Wednesday with a 6 p.m. first pitch.
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Chris Graham
