There isn’t really an off weekend in ACC Baseball. Take the upcoming series, for example — you’d think that after pulling off the series sweep over then-#23 Notre Dame last weekend, the Tar Heels might be able to take a breath with Boston College coming to town this weekend. Then you look at the standings, see that they are currently 8-4 in the conference (which is better than the Virginia team that took a series against the Tar Heels), and realize there isn’t much of a breath that can be taken.
The Tar Heels start this series against Boston College today — Thursday — and the series goes through Saturday so both teams can enjoy Easter without having to play a game. Thus, if you were looking to go to a game over at the Bosh, you’re going to need to go by Saturday.
Carolina comes into this series rolling. They’ve now won six straight, including a marathon game on Tuesday that extended into Wednesday against Campbell. Those mid-week games tend to yield results like this as you’re not throwing one of your top starters and you experiment with different players in the field and on the mound. Yet, the result itself speaks to a mindset that this Tar Heel squad seems to have. Carolina trailed 4-2 after four innings, yet Campbell never scored another run in a game that went fourteen. Carolina clawed back a couple of runs at a time and — despite leaving the bases loaded multiple times — managed to out-arm the Camels to get the 5-4 win.
It would have been easy to just let Campbell have this game to go to bed and get ready to play this series; instead they fought for a win. That’s a mindset that’ll win in May and June, and we’ll see if that keeps going.
In the other dugout, Boston College is a team that essentially defines scrappy. While the Eagles are fifteenth in hitting, they are fourth in pitching and that’s led them to having the fourth best conference record and being 21-9 overall. They took two of three against Miami, swept Cal, and are coming to the Bosh having taken two out of three from Virginia. In short, the record alone lets you know that this won’t be a cake walk.
Julio Solier, Ty Mainolfi and Nick Wang are the best bats for BC, each of them hitting well over .300 with Solier batting closer to .400. Wang is the leader in homers with 11. They will be the challenge for the UNC pitchers to get out, and will be the key to success if BC wants to continue their momentum.
On the pitching side, Brady Miller has been the stud for BC thus far this season. He’s had a bit of hard luck — his record is 0-0 and thus far BC is 2-3 when he pitches, but he currently boasts an astounding 0.82 ERA, and he’s coming off his longest outing of the season with seven innings against UVA. He’ll likely go Saturday, while tonight’s starter will be the ace A.J. Colarusso. BC has only lost one time in his starts, and while he can be hit — he currently holds a 3.37 ERA — he can go six strong, doesn’t walk many, and the Eagles have shown they’ll back him up on the mound. Friday’s starter is likely going to be Tyler Mudd. BC has only lost twice with him on the mound, but he holds the highest ERA of the likely weekend pitchers with a 4.03.
The Tar Heels will need to make the Boston College pitchers work, try to get into the Eagles’ bullpen, and basically do to the Eagles what they did against Campbell and wear them down.
The action all begins tonight at 6 PM at the Bosh, then you’ll have a 5 PM start tomorrow, and the series ends at high noon on Saturday. The Tar Heels will then host Charlotte for a midweek tilt next week before heading down to visit a struggling Clemson squad next weekend.
