Duke goes deep in the bullpen, overcomes Pitt to advance in ACC Tournament
The ACC’s highest-scoring offense struggled Wednesday night, but its bullpen kept the team in the game.
No. 7 seed Duke defeated Pittsburgh, 4-3, in the second round of the conference tournament at Durham Bulls Athletic Park, via a walk-off walk. staving off the No. 15 seed in search of another upset.
This was the fourth time this season Duke (37-18) beat Pitt after sweeping the Panthers in the regular season and second time the Blue Devils earned a comeback win over the conference foe. They are scheduled to face No. 2 seed Florida State at 3 p.m. Friday.
The Panthers (28-27) took a 3-0 lead and led until the ninth inning, but the Blue Devils’ solid pitching didn’t allow Pitt to extend its lead and gave the offense a chance to respond.
Nine Duke pitchers saw the mound against the Panthers and allowed four runs. Henry Zatkowsi got the start but faced only five batters. Ryan Calvert, Gabe Nard, Reid Easterly and Tallon James all went at least one full inning. Easterly led the group with two innings pitched and threw three strikeouts.
“We knew it was gonna be a bullpen day for us, so we talked about just passing the ball to the next guy,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “You may have to get one batter,you may get two, you may get an inning. … Just a great job by our bullpen for stepping up to the plate and each guy passing it to the next guy.”
Pollard said it was important to go deep into the pen for the sake of long-term results. He felt like starting the tournament will a bullpen game would set up the starting weekend rotation for a possible run this weekend. Additionally, it set up the rotation for the NCAA Tournament next week.
Pitcher Edward Hart said the mentality doesn’t change when the staff knows the game plan will rely heavily on the backup pitchers. He faced one batter.
The Blue Devils didn’t know their bullpen would be a real threat until the middle of April, when the lineup finally started to take shape. Then, the coaching staff inserted guys where they thrived; whether against left-handers or right-handers, early or late in the game.
Pollard complimented pitching coach Brady Kirkpatrick for figuring out how to use the pitching staff effectively and his players for embracing their roles, even if they weren’t the ones they originally expected to have.
“Guys have just embraced, ‘Whenever I’m in there, I’m going to give everything one pitch at a time and try to do my job and hand it off to the next guy,’” Pollard said.
Finding runs at the right time
Outfielder AJ Gracia led the Blue Devils at the plate, going 3 for 5 with two RBIs. He drove in Wallace Clark on a double for Duke’s first score of the night, then added a second run on a solo homer to cut the Pitt lead to one.
Catcher Macon Winslow hit a solo home run to lead off the ninth inning to tie the game 3-3. Pitt committed an error, Gracia hit a single and the Panthers intentionally walked Ben Miller to load the bases. An untimely second walk of the inning plated the winning run.
Winslow said he went into the at-bat focused on looking for a pitch in the zone that could put him on base. He wasn’t hunting a homer.
“Coach talks a lot about process. That’s a big pillar in our program. Process is not focused on results. You have your set routines and your mindset that leads you to the correct results,” Winslow said. “We just stayed within our process, put together team at-bats at the end of the game. At the beginning of the game, I felt like we were kind of pressing and trying to do too much up there.”
Gracia entered the game after earning All-ACC Second Team honors on Monday. He struggled at the plate early in the season but posted a .400 batting average in the final 26 games of the regular season, with 22 extra base hits and 12 home runs. His hot hitting, paired with the effective pitching strategy, allowed Duke to come back.
“I think there was a feeling in our dugout the whole time that if we keep this thing close, we’re going to break through here late,” he said.
