Weekend Preview: No. 11/25 Duke
A look back at opening weekend, a preview of the Blue Devils matchup, and more.
After a dominant season-opening sweep of Charleston Southern, Boston College baseball hits the road for its first conference weekend series of the year against No. 11/25 Duke. The Blue Devils (2-2) narrowly escaped Coastal Carolina with a weekend win, then dropped a midweek matchup to East Carolina.
Here’s assorted notes recapping last weekend and previewing Duke, as well as a bonus section thanks to a Blue Devils beat writer.
First, good news: Head coach Mike Gambino is back traveling with the team after missing the first week of the season due to a family emergency. Thankfully, there’s been great progress with his family’s situation and Gambino gave a heartfelt thanks for the support that has poured in.
“I’m so grateful for all the support from Boston College and the baseball community,” Gambino said. “I’m back traveling with the team and things are progressing in a good direction.”
First pitch on Friday is set for 3 p.m., followed by Saturday at 3 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.
True Base Stealers
As noted in the Charleston Southern recap, the Eagles swiped 13 bases on 13 tries, demonstrating their arsenal of speed. The lineup is loaded with what Gambino describes as “true base stealers”, or guys who have frequent green lights like Chris Galland Sal Frelick. Here’s what he had to say:
I talk to those guys and use a basketball analogy: “Shooter’s shoot.” If you’re going to be a true base stealer, you have to go. Not haphazardly and not in a way that’s not intelligent, but we have guys that we want to steal bags. We have other guys that we want to pick the right time. The thing with our offense top to bottom is we want constant pressure.
BC is tied with Louisville for the most stolen bases this year (even with one fewer game than the Cardinals).
Bottom Third of the Lineup
In the first weekend, after Charleston Southern pitchers labored through the top of the Eagles order, they didn’t get much of a respite against the bottom third. The 7-8-9 hitters of Ramon Jimenez/Joe Vetrano, Peter Burns, and Dante Baldelli combined to score eight runs, hit three home runs, and drive in nine runs over the weekend. Gambino was more than excited about the depth, noting “if you have to face that at the bottom of the order, that’s tough on a staff.”
Weekend Rotation
Pelio-Sheehan-Vetrano/Stiegler was how the Eagles went against Charleston Southern and you can expect the same this weekend. All four threw well against the Bucs, combining for 18 innings of one-run ball with 20 strikeouts. Sheehan arguably impressed the most on Saturday, fanning nine over six innings while allowing just two walks and two hits. He posted a 75 Game Score despite throwing at a lower velocity than usual.
“He didn’t beat them with velocity, he did it with a three-pitch mix—he pitched,” Gambino said. “That was against a good lineup. You’re going to see those guys score runs this year and they’re going to make a run in the conference. That was a really impressive outing.”
Back at DBAP
The Eagles are playing at Durham Bulls Athletic Park for the first time since the ACC Championship in 2019, when they made an inspired run with victories over Clemson and top-seeded Louisville before falling to North Carolina in the semifinals.
“I thought we had a chance to win that tournament,” Gambino said when reflecting back. “I honestly thought we should have been in. We were one of the first four out that year.”
Four names to know
Michael Rothenberg, C: Switch-hitting All-American with 116 career games played; led the ACC in on-base percentage in the abbreviated 2020 season.
Ethan Murray, SS: Leads the team with five hits and a .500 on-base percentage through four games.
Joey Loperfido, CF: Sparkplug near the top of the order, landed at No. 61 on D1Baseball’s preseason top-100 outfielders.
Cooper Stinson, RHP: Friday night starter who moved up from Saturday after Bryce Jarvis’s departure. Had great numbers in 2020 and throws in low 90s with a good slider.
Enemy Lines: An Opposing Writer Sizes up Duke
For a little extra background this week, I reached out to Jake Piazza, the next Sports Editor of The Chronicle, to answer some questions. You’ll find my Q&A with Piazza below, lightly edited for clarity. You can read more of his work here and follow him on Twitter here.
Q: Duke lost one of the best starters in the country and a great closer, but returned a lot of offensive firepower. What were the expectations surrounding the program coming into this season?
You hit the nail on the head with both your defensive and offensive analysis. From an offensive standpoint, kind of what I was expecting is a lot of what we saw in that Coastal Carolina series. Lot of firepower and the guys in the lineup can all go gap-to-gap. What stood out to me a lot was the fact that it’s not just nine guys who have some pop, there’s 13 to 14 guys you can plug and play. All of them are very much so capable of leaving the park or hitting gap to gap.
From a pitching standpoint, the biggest question is obviously who is filling Jarvis’ role. We got an indication on Friday that it’s going to be Cooper Stinson. Among the things we’re learning so far in the bullpen is there’s a freshman that [head coach Chris] Pollard has spoke highly of—Luke Fox. He’s a freshman lefty who went three scoreless in his first outing. There’s a couple other young guys that from watching have had some good life on the mound in Nick Conte and Josh Allen.
Q: Let’s talk about the rotation without Jarvis. It was Stinson, Williams, and an abbreviated Jack Carey start against Coastal Carolina. What did you think of the group and then who else do you think we’ll see this weekend?
Stinson has taken over the Friday night role from Jarvis. He went five innings in his season-opening start, allowing one earned run with three strikeouts and three walks. (Duke photo)
To go right to the second part of your question, longform relief is a focus. Jimmy Loper comes to mind as a guy who was very good over the weekend against Coastal. He went 3 2/3 innings and didn’t give up anything. He’s a guy that’s an older presence that could very easily be turned to when you need a guy coming out of the bullpen early. For a guy to start Sunday, it’s tough to say. I’m going to say if it’s not the BC series I wouldn’t be surprised if we do see a Luke Fox Sunday start at some point. I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if we see the same three (from the Coastal series).
Q: Coming back to what you mentioned about plugging and playing hitters into the lineups. There were three unique lineups against Coastal Carolina and things have been shuffled a lot save for the lineup mainstays like Michael Rothenberg and Ethan Murray. What do you make of all those adjustments?
That’s a good question. I’m trying to get a feel for what the team plan is going to be when it comes to utilizing depth. A third guy you can add as someone you’ll see in almost every lineup is Joey Loperfido too. He’s another guy like Rothenberg who probably shouldn’t be in college baseball still—they’d definitely be drafted in a normal year. As far as outside of the three you mentioned, there’s guys like Erikson Nichols—who had a monster day on Sunday—and Graham Pauley who’s been playing well. I can’t give a firm guess on who the nine is going to be but I expect 12 to 14 players to move in and out in the next couple of weeks.
Q: One of the guys that’s been the focus of a lot of previews and stories is outfielder Joey Loperfido—he’s been described as “glue guy” for the team. What do you make of that and what does he bring to the team?
Loperfido entered this year as a career .289/.393/.429 hitter with 34 extra base hits and 29 stolen bases in 117 games. (Duke photo)
That’s a great way to put it. He is such a glue guy. Joey is the guy that can hit you a double down the line if you need it, or he can throw a bunt down the third base line and get on base if it’s a 1-1 ballgame in the middle of the eighth. He’s very much your classic baseball guy that will do whatever it takes to get on base. You can’t say enough about how important he is to the lineup. With him and Murray and then Rothenberg coming up behind him, everything hinges off of that 1-2-3 punch. Loperfido is as important to that as either of the other two.
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