Virginia has a 3-5 record since it left for Boston two weeks ago, with series losses to Boston College and FSU, and a midweek loss to JMU.
The ’Hoos (24-10, 8-7 ACC) are headed to Notre Dame (15-13, 6-9 ACC) for a three-game weekend series that is suddenly pivotal.
Lose two of three, and UVA is .500 in the ACC heading into the home stretch of the regular season.
As recently as two weeks ago, Virginia looked like a borderline Top 8 team nationally; now, it’s looking like a second-tier #2 regional seed.
What’s going on here?
The obvious: the starting pitching sucks
The best of the group, lefty Henry Zatkowski (5-0, 4.53 ERA, 1.19 WHIP), was the Opening Day starter, but he’s been coming out of the bullpen lately, with a rare midweek start against JMU on Tuesday.
Kyle Johnson (0-0, 2.57 ERA, 0.71 WHIP) is being built up to be the #1 starter now, and looked really good last week in the 4-3 win over Florida State in Game 1 of that series – striking out seven in four scoreless innings.
Max Stammel (2-3, 6.75 ERA, 1.50 WHIP) has been the #2 starter, and, look at those numbers – those aren’t #2 starter numbers.
The #3 starter has been freshman righty John Paone (1-2, 5.78 ERA, 1.28 WHIP).
I would think that the plan, once Johnson gets stretched out, would be to have him as the #1 starter, Zatkowski at #2, and Stammel and Paone battling it out for #3 – with the guy who isn’t the Sunday guy being the midweek guy.
I haven’t liked what I’ve been seeing midweek – Virginia is 8-2 in midweek games, but the pitching staff is allowing 5.6 runs per game on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Having an established midweek starter will prevent any more JMUs – can’t afford another slipup, with NCAA Tournament seeding in mind.
The lineup
The strength of this team was supposed to be the lineup – and then you look at the ACC team stats, and you see Virginia is 13th in batting average (.278), though the Cavaliers are seventh in OPS (.903) and fourth in runs per game (9.0) and homers (57).
Those are the season-long numbers – in ACC play, the team batting average ranks 14th (.248), the OPS is 11th (.817), and the runs per game is 10th (6.4).
And in ACC play, the big bats have gone silent.
- AJ Gracia: .264 BA/.863 OPS, 2 HRs, 8 RBIs
- Sam Harris: .255 BA/.860 OPS, 3 HRs, 12 RBIs
- Harrison Didawick: .254 BA/.740 OPS, 1 HR, 11 RBIs
First-year head coach Chris Pollard has stuck with those four batting in the top five spots in the lineup, despite their relative lack of productivity, while having Antonio Perrotta (.400 BA/1.283 OPS, 3 HRs, 7 RBIs), Jake Weatherspoon (.353 BA/.980 OPS, 2 HRs, 5 RBIs in ACC games) and Kyle Johnson (.310 BA, 1.218 OPS, 3 HRs, 7 RBIs) hitting out of the six and seven spots in the order.
The guys who are struggling are getting the most plate appearances.
The guys who are raking are at the bottom of the lineup.
This makes no logical sense.
Bullpen
I like what I’ve seen from the leverage guys in the pen:
- Tyler Kapa: 1.37 ERA/0.94 WHIP, 25 Ks/8 BBs, .149 oppBA, 19.2 IP, 14 appearances
- Noah Yoder: 1.42 ERA/1.42 WHIP, 23 Ks/14 BBs, .183 oppBA, 19.0 IP, 13 appearances
- Lucas Hartman: 2.10 ERA/1.15 WHIP, 42 Ks/13 BBs, .221 oppBA, 38.2 IP, 19 appearances
- Kevin Jaxel: 3.63 ERA/1.13 WHIP, 26Ks/7 BBs, .217 oppBA, 22.1 IP, 14 appearances
Kapa is the only one of the group, and the only guy on the staff, with a save – he has seven.
Hartman is the guy with the rubber arm – 38.2 IP in 19 appearances, a little more than two innings per.
I could see him being stretched out to be a starter, if there were additional options in the late innings.
Hartman doesn’t have dominating stuff, but he knows how to pitch.
Pollard has been trying to get freshman Jayden Stroman (6.54 ERA/1.73 WHIP, 25 Ks/17 BBs, .244 oppBA, 22.0 IP, 15 appearances) to develop into a late-inning option.
Walks are the obvious issue there.
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- UVA laptop computer bag
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Chris Graham
