RICHMOND, Va. — Baseball coach Brian O’Connor had envisioned many roles for junior Matt Packer this season. Midweek starter likely was not one of them.
On the heels of his fourth loss of the season Saturday as a reliever against Boston College, though, Packer toed the mound for his first start of the year Tuesday against VCU in Virginia’s only true road contest of its non-conference schedule this season. He started the game with a three-pitch strikeout and never looked back, throwing five shutout innings as Virginia cruised to a 8-1 victory at The Diamond.
“I’ve felt for a couple of weeks quite honestly that we needed to change things up for [Packer],” O’Connor said. “I just felt at some point we needed to find the time to change his role so he could go out and have a little success, and he did [last night].”
The reigning ERA title winner for Virginia, Packer started the season as the backbone of an inexperienced bullpen in the closer role. Going into Tuesday’s game, however, his ERA had ballooned to 5.47 and all four of his losses had come during ACC play.
Packer held the Rams, though, to two hits and one walk while striking out six. Through the first 4 1/3 innings, the only hit allowed by Packer was on a play that could have easily been an out; on a groundball up the middle in the third, junior shortstop Tyler Cannon’s throw on the run pulled freshman first baseman John Hicks off the bag.
It was the first win for Packer since March 17 against Marshall, and his first win as the starting pitcher since May 15, 2008 against Radford.
“It helps my confidence, because my last few outings I’ve had a hard time,” Packer said. “It really feels good to pitch the way I know I can.”
Out of the bullpen, the difference for Packer, O’Connor has said, was often one bad pitch that broke the game open. In last night’s start, however, Packer appeared relaxed, kept pitch counts lower, and stayed out of jams.
“The difference is, when you’re pitching at the end of the game, or when it’s even in the seventh inning, it’s so tight, and every pitch can determine ... whether you win and lose the ballgame,” O’Connor said. “I think the kid handles pressure fine, but it’s a very fine line. When you start or when you’re in long relief, you’ve got a little more margin for error.”
Packer said in general that “no one knows” the answer to why he had struggled of late, but did offer a couple potential explanations.
“My changeup’s been a little faster than it has in the past and guys’ have been hitting that,” Packer said. “I’ve been walking guys, and I haven’t been getting ahead in the count. I get in a position where I have to throw a strike, and hitters know that.”
Now, with three conference series remaining on Virginia’s schedule, the question is where Packer will factor into the pitching staff as the Cavaliers prepare for the postseason. Packer is no stranger to the starting pitching role; he spent the early part of his freshman season as the Saturday starter. With his struggles out of the bullpen coinciding with the emergence of sophomore Kevin Arico at closer, one possibility is for Packer to return to the niche of midweek starter he occupied at the beginning of his career.
“It depends on what happens this weekend whether or not he might start next Tuesday against Liberty,” O’Connor said. “I know he’s not going to be available for [this] Friday and Saturday, but after that we’ll just see what our needs are.”
Packer, though, was not the only Cavalier to bounce back from a difficult weekend in Boston. With the bases loaded in the third inning, freshman third baseman Steven Proscia smoked a towering 400-plus foot shot that cleared the left-centerfield wall and the telephone poles behind it, giving Virginia a 5-0 lead. It was the fifth bomb of the season for five-hole hitter Proscia and Virginia’s third grand slam of the season.
After a 2-for-13, six-strikeout performance in the three-game series against Boston College, the pop off Proscia’s bat also was music to the ears of O’Connor.
“It was absolutely a no-doubter,” O’Connor said. “It was a 2-0 count, and he sat fastball, and he got it.”
A compilation of VCU pitchers, however, did manage to keep the Cavaliers quiet for much of the evening. None of the five VCU pitchers Tuesday threw more than two innings, and after Proscia’s grand slam, the Rams shut out Virginia through the next four innings.
“Fortunately we got that [grand slam], because other than that we didn’t score a lot of runs,” O’Connor said.
The Cavaliers return to Davenport Field for the prospect of their first full game in Charlottesville since April 8, after both midweek games at home last week were cancelled.
Notes:
Virginia’s previous trip to The Diamond was eerily similar to the one last night. The Cavaliers defeated the Rams by an identical score of 8-1 in Richmond on April 10, 2007. In both games, now-junior Phillip Deane was the starting pitcher and took the loss ... Following Matt Packer on the mound for Virginia was senior Robert Poutier (1 2/3 innings pitched, two hits, one run) and junior Neal Davis (2 1/3 innings pitched, one hit, no runs) ... Davis earned his first save of the year and the third of his career ... After going 1-for-12 with 10 strikeouts over the weekend, sophomore Jarrett Parker went 1-for-5 with no strikeouts while hitting seventh ... The Cavaliers improved to 54-6 against in-state opponents since the current coaching staff arrived in 2004.
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