Eric Becker returned, and had three hits. Henry Zatkowski had a solid outing. That’s out of the way. Why did UVA Baseball coach Chris Pollard use Lucas Hartman for two innings in an 8-1 game?
Hartman was trotted out for the 32nd time this season, and wasn’t good – he gave up two runs on three hits and two walks in his two innings of relief – in the 8-3 Virginia win at Louisville to open the teams’ three-game weekend series on Thursday.
Is there seriously no one else that Pollard can send out with an 8-1 lead than Hartman, who pitched an inning and two-thirds in the 18-6 win over Richmond on Tuesday, after lit up twice in the weekend series with Cal.
Zatkowski (7-1, 4.12 ERA) got the win, giving up a run on five hits, striking out six and walking three, on 103 pitches – which is a lot, with some meaningful games coming up.
The Z Man leads the Virginia staff with 74.2 innings over his 15 appearances – nine starts and six usages out of the pen.
Hartman is next with 60 innings over his 32 appearances out of the pen.
Even using closer Tyler Kapa to close out an 8-3 game makes little sense.
Kapa struck out two and gave up a hit in a scoreless ninth.
This signals that Pollard has absolutely no faith in anybody else out in his bullpen.
Note: there are still two games left in this weekend series.
CP is not going to be able to use Hartman for two and Kapa for one each of the next two days.
Breathing now.
Becker was 3-for-6 at the plate in his first game in nearly a month – he missed 14 games with some sort of injury; UVA Athletics doesn’t tell us anything about anything, so, whatever.
Virginia (35-18, 14-14 ACC) benefitted from nine walks, a hit by pitch and three Louisville errors; only one of the eight UVA runs was earned.
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Chris Graham
