Baseball Double-Dip vs Wake Forest Today

Baseball Non-Revenue15

Mother Nature decided not to cooperate yesterday, so a double header is underway. I’ve commented on these before- I love double headers against a superior opponent, hate ’em against inferior competition. The basic reason is, well, they’re hard to sweep! State took Friday’s season opener 7-2 behind an outstanding pitching performance by Clayton Shunick including a career high 12 strikeouts. So we need a split today to (1) win the series and (2) come out with a 0.500 conference record. A sweep puts State at 8-6 on the year, and in very nice shape after beating both ECU and Elon earlier (RPI top 50 by some rankings, with the former having previously appeared in BaseballAmerica’s top 25).

Eric Surkamp has the ball in game 1 and moving into the third inning, the score is knotted at 3. Hopefully he finds a groove and State takes this game; that eliminates the pressure and insures the series victory.

2:25: Bottom 4, State extends to a 6-3 lead on a Foschi double

About Dr. BadgerPack

NCSU Class of 99 and PhD University of Wisconsin, 2006... Which should adequately explain the screen name I chose at 2am one Saturday...

Baseball Non-Revenue

15 Responses to Baseball Double-Dip vs Wake Forest Today

  1. tulsapack 04/06/2008 at 1:54 PM #

    13-3, three innings to kill before the next one.

    Wake has given up a ton of runs this year, if McConnell keeps them to 4 or 5 in the nightcap then we ought to finish the sweep.

  2. SaccoV 04/06/2008 at 3:24 PM #

    Good first game. I was watching on the gametracker. It seems the offense has come to life, but they have had some weaker pitching to feast on in the last two series (Elon and WFU). I’m more positive than two weeks ago about the Pack’s ability to move ahead in the conference. However, I’m still concerned than the rainout against UNC will come back to hurt a little. Finishing 2nd in the Atlantic Division (to FSU) is good, but the Coastal Division is much tougher and another win would have certainly helped. Pitching seems to be stablizing with Shunick, Surkamp and McConnell. Also, Russell Wilson’s importance might not be overstated. I’m just hoping we can sneak him onto the basketball team during next season.

  3. tulsapack 04/06/2008 at 4:26 PM #

    Second game’s a good ol’ fashioned beatdown, Pack up 12-1 after three innings.

    Competition midweek will be much tougher: UNC Wilmington and Coastal Carolina are both ranked, or have been recently.

  4. vtpackfan 04/06/2008 at 4:44 PM #

    Good stuff, way to go Pack.

  5. Dogbreath 04/06/2008 at 4:46 PM #

    How can UNC-Wilmington, Coastal Carolina, and Elon have ranked programs, and we cannot? When was the last time our baseball team stayed in the top 25 for more than 3 consecutive weeks?

  6. RickJ 04/06/2008 at 5:47 PM #

    ^Elon is not ranked. We are currently in the Top 10 of the baseball RPI having played a Top 5 schedule. The team is absolutely destroying Wake Forest this weekend – try to name another NC State sport that can make this claim.

    Overall, our athletics department is terrible but baseball is playing very well. We may not end up doing squat this year but as of today, if every sport we had were achieving like baseball, we would have a lot less to complain about.

  7. tvp1 04/06/2008 at 5:55 PM #

    Our next four series are against the 4 teams at the bottom of the ACC standings now – BC, VT, Duke, Maryland.

    With the sweep of Wake, we are at 8-6. We could very easily be something like 17-9 (or even better?) going into the final three games of the regular season at FSU.

    This team could be positioning itself to host a regional.

  8. Pack92 04/06/2008 at 6:52 PM #

    Way to go Pack!

  9. Primewolf 04/06/2008 at 7:13 PM #

    In the past, we have had some miserable losses to inferior teams, lik MD. Maybe this year we will win the next four series and maybe sweep one of them.

  10. Lunatic Fringe 04/06/2008 at 7:55 PM #

    Huge sweep for the boys. We are now in sole possession of 2nd in our division and currently 5th in the ACC. We need to win the next 4 series coming up since they are the bottom dwellers of the ACC.

  11. SaccoV 04/06/2008 at 8:39 PM #

    Agreed LF, I’m looking for some continued offensive output. Hopefully the starting pitchers will continue give strong performances and the weather will hold up enough to give the team huge boost heading into the ACC Tournament.

  12. Dr. BadgerPack 04/07/2008 at 5:21 AM #

    The schedule is the main reason why the first few weeks of conference play had me about 0 % concerned. Very nice sweep of Wake and certainly some of the best conference offensive output I’ve seen over a 3 game stretch in a while.

    If this team can do what it is supposed to with the lower part of the conference schedule and put itself in a favorable spot as far as ACC tourney matchups go, the pitching could take us deep this year.

  13. Mr. O 04/07/2008 at 10:16 AM #

    http://www.warrennolan.com/baseball/2008/rpi

    #10 in the RPI. Games against #23 and #24 this week followed by three game home series vs Duke. Then ECU(#17) on next Tuesday.

    Hopefully we will win 2 OOC and 2 against Duke, but a sweep of this six games would put us in great position for hosting a regional.

  14. SaccoV 04/08/2008 at 6:44 AM #

    Just to let you know the kind of improvement offensively this team has made in just one week, Batting Avg has gone from 12th to 6th, Slugging has gone from 12th to 7th, OBP has gone from 12th to 6th (WFU however is the worst pitching team in the ACC). If this offensive output keeps up, there’s no way this team cannot catch FSU and win the conference tournament. Pitching continues to do well, as they are 2nd in ERA (3.09) for the year. All stats are from ACC.com.

  15. Classof89 04/09/2008 at 2:15 PM #

    Nice to see a Pack team performing well…lets see if they can keep it up against the bottom of the ACC. Maryland in particular has been a thorn in this team’s side lately…

Leave a Reply