Duke edges Virginia to open Super Regional play
Tyler Albright seals come-from-behind win with high list-reel catch
Maybe we should call this Duke team the Cardiac Road Dogs?
Baseball is a game of inches.
Not sure where that axiom originated. Epic of Gilgamesh, perhaps. Or the Dead Sea Scrolls. But it’s been around as long as I’ve been following the game. And it was never more apropos that Friday at the Dish.
Duke left fielder Tyler Albright leapt as high as he could leap, robbing Jake Geloff of a three-run, walk-off home run Friday afternoon, securing a come-from-behind 5-4 Duke win in the Charlottesville Super Regional.
A Duke win tomorrow, or Sunday if necessary, would send Duke to the College World Series for the first time since 1961.
To say this was a nail-biter would not to justice to biting nails. Duke led, fell behind, regained the lead and held on by the hairs of their chinny chin chins.
Six inches higher and Gelof’s blast is gone.
Horseshoes and hand grenades and all that,
Duke started freshman Andrew Healy on the mound and freshmen or sophomores accounted for 26 of the 27 Virginia outs.
Duke took a 2-0 lead in the third inning. Luke Storm was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and Damon Lux hit a hanging 0-2 breaking ball over the left-field wall.
“I was sitting cutter,” Lux told ESPN immediately following the game, “because the scouting report said that he [Nick Parker] threw a lot of cutters. Once I got to two strikes I knew I had to battle off anything in the zone. Luckily at oh-two he left one knee high and I got a good swing on it.”
Alex Mooney subsequently walked but was thrown out stealing. It was one of several squandered opportunities by both teams. Clutch pitching is in Virginia’s DNA and Duke matched them pitcher for pitcher.
Well, almost. I’ll get to that later.
The Cavaliers got one back in the bottom of the third, a perfectly executed hit-and-run putting runners on the corner. Ethan O’Donnell drove in the run with a fielder’s choice and it was 2-1 after three.
Healy was replaced by classmate Owen Proksch, who pitched two hitless innings; he did walk two.
Duke added to its lead in the top of the fifth. Andrew Fischer tripled with two outs, when Virginia right fielder Casey Saucke tried to make a shoe-string catch on a sinking liner and came up with air. Jay Beshears drove Fischer in with a single.
Charlie Beilenson came on for the sixth. Makes sense. He’s already established a Duke record for appearances in a single season and he’s been a reliable part of Duke’s bullpen rotation.
But he came up empty this time. A double, three singles and a run-scoring ground out and Fran Oschell III was replacing Beilenson. .
Oschell has been lights out at the end of games. But Duke did not plan on putting him on the mound in the sixth inning.
Until they had to.
Oschell put out the fire but Virginia was on top 4-3 after six and Virginia does not surrender late leads, certainly not at home.
Duke went down 1-2-3 in the seventh and Virginia was six outs away.
Duke had a different ending in mind.
Jay Beshears led off the eighth with a single. MJ Metz singled with one out. Giovanni DiGiacomo fell behind 0-2 but was grazed with a 1-2 pitch.
Bases loaded.
Albright tied the game on a strange play, a shallow fly ball that turned into a center field to third base force-out. But Beshears scored from third. Storm followed with a clean single and Duke was up 5-4.
Duke ended up loading the bases with two out but Mooney grounded out and the lead stayed at a single run.
And a shaky run, it was. Oschell came out for the eighth and Virginia got leadoff batter Kyle Teel to second base with no outs. A single and a stolen base. But Oschell got a strikeout, a fly out and a pop out.
Fischer led off the ninth with a single but Duke got no further.
Oschell had gone 2.2 innings and maybe more was a risk. Then again, he pitched four scoreless innings against NC State in the ACC Tournament.
Duke went with freshman James Tallon. For most of the season Tallon was one of the NCAA’s best closers. But he was shelled the last two times he pitched and didn’t pitch an inning last week in Conway.
Was his arm dead? Confidence issues?
It would be reassuring to say that Tallon shut down the Cavaliers. Not exactly the case. Maybe it was rust. He retired the first two batters he faced but a single and a walk gave Gelof a chance to be the hero.
He almost seized it. Gelof has 22 home runs this season and that’s playing most of his games in a pitcher’s park. He’s at or near the top of every Virginia home-run record, career or season. Tying run at second, winning run at first and you sure can’t pitch around him, not with Teel on deck.
Which takes us back to the beginning of this summary. Gelof gave it a ride. But Albright brought it back to earth and Duke goes up 1-0, a victory well earned by a team that just seems to have that “it” factor.
Duke was one win away from Omaha in 2018 at Texas Tech and one win away twice at Vanderbilt in 2019. Is the fourth time the charm? Tune in at noon tomorrow and found out.
Nails.....gone.
Hopefully they pay it off so this one gets its full due in all-time Duke finishes. In Pollard we trust!
Exciting game yesterday. It was 3-1 Duke when I started watching so I saw our lead disappear and comeback. I thought the last ball was gone but it wasn’t.
Waiting for noon and Game 2. Let’s finish this today.