Louisville baseball: Cardinals welcome in Yellow Jackets for weekend series
The Louisville baseball squad comes into this weekend with the #6 ranking in the land, and they’ll welcome in new ACC rival Georgia Tech for the fourth conference series of the season.
The Cardinals have opened ACC play with an 8-1 record, with their lone loss coming to #10 Miami (FL), but are coming off a pair of ACC sweeps against Boston College and Notre Dame.
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If the Cards starters falter throughout the weekend, they can take solace in knowing their bullpen can come in and shut things down. Through the first 25 games this year, the non-starters have a combined ERA of 1.78, an 11-0 record and have 117 strikeouts in 101 innings pitched. Yes, if you’re wondering, that’s good.
Also good is the play of Sutton Whiting while at the plate. He leads the Cards in batting average on the year (.406) and is hitting .500 in conference play (that’s nine games of half-success guys. In baseball, that’ll get you in some sort of hall of fame).
Coming into the weekend with a 17-7 record, the Ramblin’ Wreck certainly wont be a walk in the park. The conference record says they’ve struggled to open ACC play, but they took two of three from Notre Dame and Duke and dropped two of three to UNC.
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The Jackets are solid in the field, leading the ACC in fielding percentage (.978) and can get it done from the batter’s box as well, ranking in the top five in the league in average, slugging, scoring, doubles and home runs.
Here is, arguably, the most interesting statistic – the Cardinals have won 114 consecutive games when leading after nine innings, but the Jackets are outscoring opponents 45-12 in the final two innings of regulation plus the extras and have a trio of walkoff wins. Now, while a walkoff will be impossible this weekend for Tech, we may very well see that impressive Cardinal streak come to an end this weekend.
Here are your series probables, with Louisville’s pitcher being listed first.
Friday, 4:00 ET: Kyle Funkhouser (2-2, 2.61 ERA) vs. Jonathan King (2-0, 3.28 ERA)
Saturday, 1:00 ET: Brendan McKay (3-0, 1.04) vs. Cole Pitts (0-2, 3.31)
Sunday, 1:00 ET: Josh Rogers (3-1, 4.41) vs. Brandon Gold (3-0, 1.83)
All three games will be video broadcast on ESPN3.