In 20 years of coaching and playing college baseball, Virginia coach Brian O’Connor had never seen a final out quite like the one that allowed Miami to inflict the first loss against Virginia this season.
A final out made on a play at the plate on a passed-ball third strike turned out to be the pivotal moment of a bizarre but thrilling series, as the Cavaliers lost their first series of the season to the Hurricanes. After opening the series with a 9-4 victory Friday night, Virginia fell in Saturday’s game 4-3 and lost 7-5 Sunday in an eight-inning contest shortened because of the constraints of Miami’s traveling schedule.
“I’ve never been in a game with a time limit like [the one Sunday], and the Saturday game ending with a passed-ball third strike,” freshman catcher John Hicks said. “They were some crazy endings.”
In the bottom of the ninth in Saturday’s contest, the Cavaliers were down one run with the bases loaded and two outs and two strikes on sophomore right fielder Dan Grovatt, as he stepped in the box against Miami’s closer, junior Kyle Bellamy. With an anxious crowd of 2,649 people looking on, Bellamy’s 2-2 delivery had Grovatt fooled. Grovatt’s swing came nowhere near Bellamy’s pitch, which dove into the dirt toward junior catcher Jason Hagerty, seemingly ending the contest.
The action, however, was far from finished. The ball skipped past Hagerty and back to the cement wall behind the plate. Standing on third base was sophomore centerfielder Jarrett Parker, who immediately started running home as Hagerty chased the ball down. Hagerty slid to the ball and fired to Bellamy covering the plate, whose tag appeared to meet Parker’s ankle a split second after Parker’s right foot touched home — but home plate umpire Jacob Asher pumped his fist for the final out.
An infuriated Parker jumped up and yelled in disbelief, and O’Connor raced out of the dugout to confront Asher about what appeared to be a blown call. Instead of an argument though, what O’Connor got instead was an explanation; Bellamy’s tag was in fact unnecessary. With Virginia runners at every base, the play was a force. As Bellamy received the throw with his right foot on home plate, the out was made before Parker’s sliding foot reached home.
There was no controversy — only heartbreak and disbelief as Virginia suffered its first loss.
“It was a tough way to lose your first game of the season,” O’Connor said, “but we are proud that we had a good 19-game stretch there to open up the season.”
The bizarre finish to Saturday’s contest set up an enormous, deciding game the next day. Much to the disappointment of some players and fans, however, the game ended prematurely. Because Miami needed to catch an 8 p.m. flight out of Washington, D.C. last night, per ACC policy, an inning could not start after 3:30 p.m.
So, as the scoreboard clock ticked past 3:30 in the bottom of the eighth with Miami leading 7-5, Virginia again had one chance for a comeback against Bellamy. In a replay of the night before, sophomore Dan Grovatt stood in with two outs and two runners in scoring position. But Bellamy struck out Grovatt swinging — and this time, Hagerty squeezed the ball into his glove for the final out.
The strikeouts that ended games two and three were among seven this weekend for Grovatt. The slugger struggled, going 1-for-12 for the series from the plate and ending his 21-game hitting streak that dated back to last season.
“Danny had a really tough weekend — he did not swing the bat like he’s capable of, and he knows that,” O’Connor said. “I know he’ll be right back and ready to go on Tuesday.”
On the offensive side for Miami, it was a four-run seventh Saturday and a three-run eighth Sunday against waning Virginia pitchers that ultimately cost the Cavaliers the series. The score stood at 5-4 in Virginia’s favor Sunday to begin the eighth after the Cavaliers took their first lead in the seventh on a clutch, two-run RBI single by freshman first baseman Danny Hultzen.
Because junior closer Matt Packer was unavailable because of his many innings logged throughout the week and because O’Connor’s second choice at closer, sophomore Kevin Arico, already had “one inning in him,” however, O’Connor sent sophomore Tyler Wilson to the mound in the Hurricanes’ half of the eighth inning. Wilson had already given up two runs in three innings of work, and proceeded to give up a leadoff walk and back-to-back RBI doubles.
As it became clearer that there would be no ninth inning, O’Connor made the switch to Arico. Wilson’s teammate, though, did not fare much better; after a sacrifice bunt moved a runner on second to third, Arico gave up a line drive single, scoring Miami’s third run of the inning.
“If I would’ve known for sure we would’ve only played eight innings, then I would’ve brought Kevin Arico in in the eighth inning,” O’Connor said. “You just don’t know how quick an inning’s [going to] happen.”
Saturday, senior starting pitcher Andrew Carraway had two outs and the bases empty in the sixth, having thrown close to 100 pitches through six-plus innings while not allowing a hit after the first, in what O’Connor said was “one of Andrew’s better outings that I think he’s had in our uniform.” Miami, however, knocked back-to-back singles, and Carraway then walked the next batter to load the bases, signaling the end of the afternoon for the senior.
“The walk to load the bases was a tough one,” O’Connor said. “I was hoping that he’d have them put the ball in play, and if they score the two runs, they score the two runs. But he didn’t make the pitch, and walked him, and created a pretty tough situation.”
Needing a big out, O’Connor replaced Carraway with Packer, Virginia’s best closer and most experienced pitcher in clutch situations. The final out of the inning proved elusive even for Packer, however, as two 2-RBI singles with a walk in between gave Miami the 4-3 lead.
Packer “will bounce back,” O’Connor said. “That’s what your closer needs to do. You’re [going to] be in tight ball games like that. You’re [going to] succeed a lot of the time, sometimes you’re not, especially against a good ball club like Miami.”
For Virginia, both losses were marked by a quality uncharacteristic of the team to this point of the season: leaving runners in scoring position. The Cavaliers left 10 runners on base Saturday and 11 Sunday; they loaded the bases twice with no outs but were unable to cash in either time.
“To beat a quality opponent in this league, that’s just not [going to] cut it,” O’Connor said.
Virginia opened the series with Hultzen on the mound, who came off a 13-strikeout performance with one earned run allowed in seven innings against Florida State in his previous Friday start. The freshman was not as dominant against the Hurricanes, allowing three earned runs on seven hits and fanning six in six innings, but the typically aggressive Virginia offense helped him earn the win. The Cavaliers left just six runners on base while scoring seven runs, five of them earned, on the 2008 ACC Freshman of the year, Miami sophomore pitcher Chris Hernandez.
Most significant of the runs was a two-run home run by the lefty Parker over the 377-foot mark in left field in the bottom of the third, knotting the game at three apiece. Parker, the team’s leadoff hitter, now leads the Cavaliers in home runs (4) and slugging percentage (.769).
Though there were plenty of highlights from Virginia during the series — including the home run from Parker Friday and a three-RBI performance from sophomore Phil Gosselin Sunday — the efforts were mostly erased by just two bad innings.
“We’ve gotten beat this weekend on two innings: the seventh inning [Saturday] and the eighth inning [Sunday],” O’Connor said. “Sometimes with two good teams, that’s what it comes down to.”
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