The Cavalier baseball team finally get a seemingly easy baseball series this weekend when they travel down to Raleigh to take on the Wolfpack of NC St. Even though judging by the two records you would think this would be a cakewalk for the Cavs, any UVa baseball fan can tell you we have had our ups and downs with the damn pack in the past.
Only one time in the past 3 years has UVa taken the series from NC St. In both '07 and '08 we lost the series! For some reason, NC St is the one team in the entire conference that we have the toughest time with. This year, the pack comes into the weekend with a 16-9 record with a 3-6 record in the ACC. To their defense, their ACC schedule has been almost as tough as the Hoos' having played Clemson, Wake Forest, and Miami.
Pitching is not the Wolfpack's strong suit this year that is for sure. All three of this weekend's starters have an ERA over 4.50. In comparison, both Danny Hultzen and Robert Morey have ERA's more than a point and a half less than their starters. Scoring runs and getting hits should not be too difficult for the Cavs this year. The difficult part for the Hoos this weekend will be getting the NC St batters out. They come into the weekend with the highest team batting average in the conference at .349 (UVa is second in the conference at .345). They even have three batters batting over .380 this year and are lead by Kyle Wilson who has a .427 BA and 4 HR's.
The Hoos are coming off fairly strong weekday showings that saw a lot of everyday players get some innings off. Although there was a brief scare on the Tuesday game vs. Towson, where they fell behind 0-4 in the 3rd, the Cavs bounced back and ended up winning 8-5. Wednesday was even easier, as they cruised to a 17-4 victory.
My prediction for the weekend
After seeing this team first hand last weekend in their series vs. Clemson, I am an even stronger believer that they are the #1 team in the nation more than I was before. This team is too legit and shouldn't be stopped this weekend by the Pack. I see us taking all three of the games this weekend and move to 10-2 in the conference. My stats on the year: 24/26.....my average just keeps on climbing. Get on the bandwagon if you aren't already on.