Four men up, only one baserunner. Three men up, three men down. Three men up again, three men down again. Statistically speaking, the first three innings of at-bats for No. 11 Boston College baseball in its series opener against Duke weren’t pretty. But once the bottom of the fourth inning hit, all of BC’s hitting woes turned around. But it wasn’t pretty either.
After Travis Honeyman flicked a single up the middle to kick the inning off, a passed ball allowed him to steal second base. Joe Vetrano grounded out, which advanced Honeyman to third and forced Duke’s starter, Jason White, out of the game. Facing relief pitcher Charlie Beilenson, Patrick Roche knocked in BC’s first run of the game with a chopper to Alex Mooney. The shortstop failed to convert the throw to first, allowing Roche to safely reach and score the runner.
After cutting the deficit to 3–1, Leary advanced Roche to second with a single, igniting some fire into BC’s crowd, and Duke’s mistakes only added up from there.
Nick Wang reached first base on a fielder’s choice, and Barry Walsh put the icing on the cake with a single, scoring Roche and advancing Wang to third. Just one pitch later, Wang trotted home on a passed ball to tie the game. And then just one batter later, Vince Cimini dribbled a grounder right through Andrew Fischer’s glove, sending Walsh home to put BC ahead 4–3 lead after four innings.
Although BC (23–10, 8–8 Atlantic Coast) took a lead in the fourth inning, it was the Eagles’ last lead of the game and they relinquished it quickly. In the top of the fifth inning, Duke’s Jay Beshears stamped a solo home run to tie the game, and the Blue Devils (22–11, 8–7) ran away from there. Using just two pitchers with sub-1.00 ERAs for the final four innings of the game, Duke pulled away for a 6–4 win.
Despite the loss, BC head coach Mike Gambino remained committed to his lineup and said it was a matter of the pitching BC faced.
“We talked about trying to find one at-bat that somebody gave up—that you would have considered a bad at-bat,” Gambino said of his discussion with his players after the game. “And we couldn’t find one. A couple guys chased up against [Fran] Oschell, but that fastball has crazy [vertical break] on it, really good fastball. … But I thought our bats were good.”
Beilenson didn’t allow a single run in the bottom of the fifth inning, and reliever Fran Oschell III replaced him in the bottom of the sixth. Oschell, who nearly pitched into triple-digit speeds with his fastball and complemented it with a high-arching breaking ball, pitched all the way through the bottom of the eighth inning, notching five strikeouts, zero earned runs, zero hits, and just one walk.
“High-spin fastball with crazy vertical break,” Gambino said of Oschell. “22, 25 inches of VB on that. And I will tell you this. [Cimini] chased the fastball up, [Vetrano] chased the fastball up, and I thought our plans against him were awesome. I mean the guys executed, executed their plan. But, he’s good. He’s talented, I mean they both give up half a run a game.”
By both, Gambino also meant James Tallon, who collected his seventh save of the season, striking out two BC batters in the bottom of the ninth inning to secure the win. Other than Duke’s Kassius Thomas, who’s only pitched 4.1 innings this season, Oschell and Tallon contribute the two best ERAs on the Blue Devils’ roster.
Duke jumped out to an early 3–0 lead through the top of the fourth inning, but it didn’t faze BC, according to Gambino.
“We did what we’ve been doing all year,” Gambino said. “When we were down, it was like there was never any real threat. … You know, it’s just, the numbers say it’s gonna be hard to score runs against those two guys. But like I said, the bats were great, and there was a true belief we’re gonna win that ball game, all the way through.”
Despite giving up runs here and there—four in total—starting pitcher Henry Leake did just about everything he could on the mound, posting seven strikeouts in five innings.
“He’s gonna give us five to six with a chance to win the ball game every time out there—you can’t ask for more than that,” Gambino said. “He did it. He was five, we thought about trying to steal one more, and you know, could we have stolen one more? Possibly if it turned into a three-spot, but he was pretty out of gas.”
And down the line, it just got tougher and tougher for the Eagles’ lineup. In comparison to the Blue Devils’ three combined runs in the last five innings of the game, BC didn’t score in a single inning other than the fourth in the 6–4 loss.
“You know, the league is gonna be a grind,” Gambino said. “Not knocking on any other league, but when you’re in the ACC and SEC, it’s just a different grind.”
