What is the story about?
Knowns:
- Head (.278/.468/.722, 3 2B, 7 HR, 24.4 BB%, 5.1 K%, 12-14 SB) and McHugh (.418/.487/.776, 4 2B, 6 HR, 10.4 BB%, 13.0 K%, 2-3 SB) at the top of the lineup are going to produce.
- Not really worried about 1 and 2 in the order.
- There are a lot of guys who can put the ball over the wall.
- Seven players have multiple home runs, and there have been some impressively demolished baseballs.
- Dudan (4-0, 1.11 ERA, 24.1 IP, 3.3 BB%, 36.3 K%) is a beast.
- He’s looked like an All-American and 1st rounder so far this year.
Questions:
- Can the offense generate runs against pitchers who pound the zone?
- It’s no coincidence that the Wolfpack’s three losses also coincide with three of the four lowest freebie (walks, HBP, errors) totals by opponents this year. The fourth in there was the sweat-it-out close series opening win against Princeton.
- Can the offense generate runs when not hitting home runs?
- Those losses also coincide with three of the five games where State has hit fewer than two home runs, including losses in the only two games State went homerless.
- How healthy is Bargo (.361/.415/.806, 1 2B, 5 HR, 9.8 BB%, 17.1 K%, 0-0 SB)?
- Watching the senior transfer try to run out ground balls this past week was blatantly obvious that he’s not a full health.
- To a lesser extent, how healthy is Nixon’s ankle?
- He’s looked fine, but still a valid question after he was pulled early against Queens.
- Can Bargo hit left-handed pitching?
- Not much to add here. The lefty hitter can mash, but he’s an entirely different bat against southpaws.
- How will Mikey Ryan, Sherman Johnson, Rett Johnson, Wyatt Peifer, and Andrew Wiggins going to stack up against ACC pitching?
- They’ve all hit better than expected, but will it continue against better arms?
- Is Preston Bonn the answer at catcher?
- Great start, but the Pack will need some production from their backstop – whether that’s Bonn, Lanphere, or DeCarlo. Despite an impressive ability to not strikeout (and consequently an awful .176 BABIP), Lanphere has struggled to produce offensively since the opening week of the season.
- Is Marohn actually healthy?
- Missing his last start and then having Andrews not pitch in the midweek loss to Elon is not a good indicator. We’re also operating under the assumption that Andrews was held out as an insurance policy for Friday in case Marohn can’t go, and not due to an injury of his own. Not having Marohn in the weekend rotation would be a huge loss for the Pack.
- Can the young arms (Harris, Hemric, Kitching, Black, Garino) hold up against ACC batters?
- It’s been a mixed bag early, as you’d expect with a bunch of first- and second-year players, but certainly with more good than bad.
- Can Heintz play a bigger role?
- He’s been really impressive so far against not-great competition. The stuff has looked as good as the numbers, though.
- The defense can make some exceptional plays, can they make the routine ones?
- If you’ve watched the games, you know exactly what this is about.
