Hokies turned in a truly dismal performance at the plate against Duke. Hitters struck out 33 times in 25 innings. Barring Cooke catching lightning in a bottle in Game 2 it may have been Hokies worst series of the season.
This week they host Liberty on Tuesday at 6pm on ACCNX. This weekend they go one the road to Pitt (20-21) badly needing a sweep. Friday is 6pm on ACCNX. Saturday is 3pm on ACCNX. Sunday is 1pm on ACCNX.
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Lead Bibberty 1-0 in 3rd
Hokies had bases loaded with no outs and only manage 1 run
Hokies up 2-0 now in 4th but allow runner on 1st to go first to third on a wild pitch. Walked the next batter so 1st and 3rd no outs in top of 4th
Another walk loads the bases and Hokies going to the bullpen
Infielders got sucked up towards plate on two different plays. First one should have been easy catch by shortstop. Second should have been easy double play.
Instead it's now 4-2 Liberty
Defense suspect in the 5th too. Allowed a bouncer under glove to get on and then McCann just whiffs on a pitch to let runner go to 2nd. Fortunately Curtis strikes out the next batter. Still 4-2
Bottom 5th, Hokies have strung three singles together. Tackett RBI single to score Pittman makes it 4-3
Lewis watches all three strikes to strand two more runners in scoring position.
Hokies allow bases loaded double in 6th. 7-3 now
Hokies to bullpen, both switches have been multiple batters too late. Not sure why Szefc is leaving these Guys out there
Hokies defense botches two balls. Let a liner drop in front of CF but then terrible throw and cutoff leads to run and batter getting to second.
8-3 now
Hokies botch another infield chopper. Runners at 1st and 3rd now.
Walk loads the bases again. Liberty has batted around. Hokies to bullpen again.
Single brings in 2 more.
10-3 now
Getting embarrassed at home
Hokies finally get out of the inning.
Hokies do nothing in bottom of 6th.
10-3
Another ground ball single, pass ball to second, error by 3B on groundball initially ruled an out at third but going to be fortunately not overturned on review. Pretty clear runner was safe.
Tackett let's a ball go over his head for ground rule double. Just ugly baseball at every turn
Hokies escape with no runs scored.
Pitching hasn't been the problem. Defense has been horrible. Hitting has failed to capitalize on opportunities.
Hokies leave another runner in scoring position. 10-3 to the 8th. Turning it off.
Hammered Hokies down 13-3 in bottom of ninth
Liberty 3 outs away from making their record 6-3 against the ACC.
13-4 final. Team doing same thing as last year...falling apart when it matters.
Yikes, sounds ugly. Is baseball like the other ACC sports and only the top so many teams make the conf tourney?
All 16 go but Top 8 get bye, top 4 get double bye.
Bigger concern is NCAAs and Hokies losing consistently for about three weeks
This season started off so promising....
I know baseball is random and based on pitching, etc. But it is so Virginia Tech to get dusted by fucking liberty at home late in the year. Such a VT move.
Been the ACC move this year.
Liberty is 6-3 against ACC. They swept UVA for two, beat NC State, beat Duke, lost to Clemson twice, split with Wake Forest, and beat the Hokies.
Still play them once more this season at Liberty on May 7th.
Maybe we should hire Liberty's fucking coach and recruiting guy
If their overall record was better I might see it but they are basically same overall record as Hokies, just get up for ACC games but have lost to lesser conference teams.
Significant rain delay today.
Hokies trail 8-4 at middle of the 8th
Need 4 or more in the 9th to avoid losing to Pitt. Really poor performance all around
Lost game one 9-5
uh, yeah... dropping the opener to a .500 team that's 7-15 in league play is a pretty awful way to start a home series. At this point with only 5 ACC games left they need to win every remaining ACC game to have a hope of getting just one bye in the ACCT. Even then I can't see a pathway into the NCAA tournament that doesn't also involve winning the ACC tournament.
It's an away series but still not acceptable
overlooking that probably indicates exactly how much I care at this point in the season after the 2nd-half collapse we've witnessed
Feel you on that.
Hokie having a day
As a Twins fan this brightens my day a bit. Schobel has had an average start to the year - I haven't been following closely, but he didn't start cold and he hasn't gone on any streaks, he's just been consistent at the plate but still needs some improvement. It wouldn't surprise me if he gets a late-season promo to St. Paul AAA if the guy in front of him (Fitzgerald) gets the September call-up with the Twins. Depending on what happens in the off-season there may be some hope for a non-roster invite to Spring training next year.
Now doing a 12pm and 330pm doubleheader tomorrow
Trail 3-2 in bottom of the 3rd
Trail 4-3 in the 6th
Lose Game 2 5-3. Apparently since they made it a doubleheader they agreed to 7 inning games
Losing Game 3 6-4 in 4th.
A sweep here ends any discussion of Hokies postseason
Losing 7-5 and if game 3 is 7 innings then Hokies have 3 outs left
Now 8-5 going to 7th
Hokies have made it 8-7 now to make it interesting
Box score shows bottom of 7th trailing 8-7. Doesn't show game over yet.
Now 9-7 in bottom of 7th so must be playing 9 innings in game 2
9-8 now in 8th inning
Hokies tie it in the 8th 9-9. Pitt batting in bottom half
Hokies have 11-9 lead in bottom of the 9th
And blow the lead
11-11 now with Pitt still batting
Headed to the 10th
Bottom 10th still tied
Bottom of 12th. Still 11-11
Hokies score two in top of 13th but again blow the lead.
13-13 in bottom of 13th
Guess they could have left the first one at 9 innings. playing 20 on the day at this point.
Well, at least they are hitting.
Hokies lose 14-13 in the 13th, get swept by a sub 500 conference team after blowing two two run leads in the 9th and 13th. This team just finds ways to lose games.
Ugly stats.
Also, oddly specific stats that can skew the story. Why April 10th and not the whole month of April? Likely the stat looks worse. It's not great, but possibly not as bad this tweet makes it seem. I agree with the S&C content below, but April is the end of conf play so the ends of a stretch of much tougher competition. Early season we are typically facing weaker teams and probably get more bench players in on the action to keep the whole team fresh
I couldn't figure out why April 10 either. Spring break for VT happens almost a month before that date, so that isn't it.
Roughly midway point of the ACC schedule is how it looks to me.
Roughly equates to a 6-11 finish consistently which is on the coaching staff.
If so, then say "over the last 7 session the Hokies have record of X-X in the back half of ACC play" otherwise it's looks like they cherry-picked data to fit the "Hokies finish poorly every year" story they were looking for.
Even cherry picked 3 and 27 over 6 seasons means they averaged a half a series win per year outside of 2022. That's winning one out of every ten series. Even if they go back a week or two I doubt it changes that number to anything respectable.
I am not defending the record, just criticizing the stat making.
I've noticed this too, it seems like every season they get off to a really strong start, then by this time of year they've just got nothing left and go into freefall.
It says a lot that the past several years as the spring wears on, I've gone "it's about time for them to start losing" right around the time they start losing.
I'm sure Whit will throw more absurd money at his favorite sport to fix it.
Honestly, if not half assed, I think this is a good thing. We need to go all in on like 1-3 sports that we could actually win in (not football or men's basketball) and prove that we can actually win a championship. We need some success to build off of.
When I see a team consistently crater like this its a program failure specifically in the S&T side, not a unique thing or happenstance for any one team and the "next year" mentality. Whatever the program is doing in the off-season to get ready seems to be working, but once the first game starts its clear to me that the team is not conditioning and recovering well enough. The team just looks fatigued and they need someone to clean things up with better training, rest, and nutrition and also do a better job of helping the players correctly plan their schedules so they have time to do all the things they need to do to get their bodies ready.
Here it is by season