I wrote a few weeks ago about how the 2015 UVA baseball team wasn’t an NCAA Tournament team, and cited chapter and verse as to why I’d come to that conclusion (synopsis: pitching, defense, holes in the lineup, lack of depth, but mainly, pitching).
And then I tweeted during the ACC Tournament, during the second eighth-inning meltdown, in the loss to N.C. State, that the Cavs should decline the bid that seemed to be coming their way.
And now here we are, getting ready for another Super Regional, the sixth in seven years.
The most improbable UVA postseason run ever? Not quite. (The 1984 Final Four will always top that list, with the 1976 ACC Tournament being a close second.)
But this one is maybe the most satisfying, if only because of what this squad has had to go through to get here.
For starters, how many home games can a team lose to snow and ice without going completely bonkers at having to travel up and down the East Coast in search of a strip of green grass to play on?
Then you factor in the injuries, myriad. It got so bad that coach Brian O’Connor had to mull over calling guys up from the club team, which … how many of us even knew there was a UVA club team until we heard about this scheme?
Kevin Doherty is a good case in point here. The junior lefty spent the summer in Waynesboro pitching for the Generals team in the Valley League that I volunteer with (doing radio, PR, some front-office stuff), and his time on the field was entirely on the mound in the middle of it. So it was a surprise to see him in the outfield this spring, then DH’g.
Doherty got the game-winning hit last night that sent Virginia to the Super Regionals, after throwing three and a third innings of relief, but those of us who knew him from Waynesboro last summer wouldn’t have expected anything less: he started and won Game 1 of the VBL championship series pitching with mono.
That kind of resilience is the hallmark of this 2015 UVA baseball team. It’s not an NCAA Tournament team; the holes that were there three weeks ago are still glaring. Connor Jones is the only consistent starting pitcher, and good as he is, he’s one guy. Brandon Waddell pitched his ass off in the second game at Lake Elsinore, but he’s 4-5 this season after winning 15 as a sophomore in 2014.
After those guys, maybe you get Nathan Kirby back next weekend, but even if you do, it’s like getting Justin Anderson back after his long layoff. Kirby is a brand name, like JA, but a starting pitcher who hasn’t thrown a ball in anger in seven weeks doesn’t just magically give you seven quality innings in a Super Regional.
It still has guys all over the diamond playing out of position, guys getting at-bats in NCAA Tournament situations that probably shouldn’t be coming until after a season of summer ball.
Spit, tape, smoke, mirrors, some black magic, some gumption, and they’re doing what they always do, win meaningful games in May and June.
(It was 4:22 a.m. on June 1 on the East Coast when the regional clincher concluded.)
To me, this run, however much longer it goes, this weekend or another trip to Omaha, this one means more than any of the others.
To some degree, anybody can win with the talent that the 2011 or 2014 teams had. And no, it’s not that easy to win with high expectations, but neither is it easy to win with no expectations.
Except that it’s obvious that inside that clubhouse, anyway, there are expectations, and that’s what makes this team dangerous.
I’ve been a part of two Valley League champs, in 2013 and 2014, and the first of those teams was about the biggest train wreck that you can imagine, injuries all over the place, the roster down to 22 guys by the end of the season, a ragtag group of D1 and D3 castoffs without a single all-league player among them.
That team didn’t get to .500 on the season until the last day of the regular season, then went 6-2 in the playoffs.
Those guys have rings because they rallied around themselves.
The 2015 UVA baseball team has talent, and that’s important. But more important, it seems to realize that its value is more than the sum of its component parts, which is how this team that isn’t an NCAA Tournament team is headed back to Omaha.
– Column by Chris Graham
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