Virginia scored 13 runs in its Opening Game win over Wagner on Friday, and turns out, that was the low-water mark.
Saturday’s doubleheader, which started at noon, and went into the 9 p.m. ET hour, saw the ‘Hoos score 25 runs in the Game 2 win, and 31 in the Game 3 win.
Wagner, for what it’s worth, was picked third in the preseason Northeast Conference poll, returning 23 players from the 2025 team that went 31-22 overall, and 23-7 in conference play.
Which is to say, the Seahawks, they’re not awful.
The guys they threw at Virginia – OK, at least the Game 1 guy, Colin Trizuto (4-3, 4.96 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 15 starts in 2025) – not chopped liver.
I was at The Dish for Game 2, and what I saw was, a disciplined approach at the plate that took note of the strategy of the Wagner staff – don’t give them anything, get the UVA kids to get themselves out, swinging at bad pitches – and turned it on its head.
Virginia hitters worked 38 (!) walks over the three games.
The team slash line for the weekend: .388/.561/.595, for a team OPS at 1.146, with six homers, 52 RBIs, 69 runs scored.
“I told our guys, you know, we’re still in a little bit of a fact-finding mission. We’re still learning about ourselves. We’ve got an enormous amount of room for growth, so that’s nowhere near the best version of us, and nowhere near where we’ll be as the season grows,” first-year UVA coach Chris Pollard said.
He was mostly talking there about his pitching staff, which pitched to a 5.67 team ERA in the sweep.
UVA Baseball fans are going to have some getting used to in terms of learning to appreciate the way Pollard uses his pitching staff, which is, not the way Brian O’Connor went about using his staff.
Oak, a traditionalist, liked to go as long as possible with his weekend starters – getting outs in the sixth, the seventh, into the eighth a lot of nights.
His most recent College World Series team, in 2024, got 99.1 IP out of lead workhorse Evan Blanco over 18 starts that season; his 2023 CWS team got 80+ innings out of the three weekend guys (Brian Edgington, Connolly Early and Nick Parker), and 65.1 IP out of the midweek starter (Jack O’Connor).
Pollard’s 2025 Duke team, which was a game away from a CWS appearance, got 74.0 innings out of Ryan Easterly, who didn’t start a single game – he made 37 appearances in relief.
He had four guys who made double-digit starts – Owen Proksch (65.1 IP), Henry Zatkowski (59.2 IP), Andrew Healy (42.0 IP) and Kyle Johnson (41.1 IP).
Zatkowski, Pollard’s Opening Day starter, went three innings on Friday, getting touched for five runs on five hits, striking out six, but walking four and hitting one batter.
The lefty’s deepest appearance at Duke in 2025: six innings, in a 16-6 win over NC State on April 30, in which he threw 80 pitches.
He went five innings two other times.
The starter going three or four innings, and then being available for bullpen duty, or an inning or two midweek, is going to be the norm, with Pollard valuing depth, and having a lineup only see even his best arms one time through, if at all possible.
“We threw, what, maybe 16 arms this weekend in the three ballgames,” Pollard said late last night, after the daylong doubleheader sweep.
“I think 10 of them were making their UVA debut. I think maybe six or seven of them were making their collegiate debut. So, huge to get so many guys, you know, get their feet wet, and let them get a little bit of a taste of it,” Pollard said.
There is no question about this team’s ability to hit the ball and score runs in bunches.
How far this team plays into June will depend on the ability of the pitching staff to get outs.
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Chris Graham
