Virginia (33-3, 13-2 ACC) has won 14 out of its last 15 games, including two of three games from No. 8 Georgia Tech last weekend. The team is coming off of two impressive midweek victories, shutting out Georgetown Tuesday, and staging a ninth inning rally Wednesday to down Coastal Carolina in walk-off fashion.
Junior pitcher Will Roberts tossed five shutout innings during a rain-shortened start against Georgetown, extending his scoreless inning streak to 26 frames. The righty's eye-opening recent performances have pushed coach Brian O'Connor to consider moving him to the weekend rotation, where he would face the team's tougher conference opponents. Sunday's usual starter, senior pitcher Cody Winiarski, struggled in last weekend's matchup against the Yellow Jackets, but bounced back Wednesday, pitching four innings of one-run ball. "[Winiarski] didn't have a great outing at Georgia Tech and I wanted to get him right back out there, get him some more innings, get him feeling good about himself against a really good opponent, and so it worked," O'Connor said.
The coach has not yet announced the starter for Sunday's game, but downplayed the battle for the spot.
"It's nothing about Cody against Will, it's about what's best for Virginia baseball," O'Connor said.
Likewise, Roberts expressed a willingness to pitch on whatever day is best for his team.
"If the team needs me on Tuesday, I'll pitch the best I can on Tuesday," Roberts said. "I never really feel that I can do a better job than any of our pitchers can, because I've seen how hard we work."
Whereas Virginia boasts an excess of qualified weekend starters, the Blue Devils have struggled to find consistency with their rotation. The team's two regular weekend starters have an average 5.36 ERA, almost three runs higher than Virginia's 2.42 ERA. Duke (20-16, 4-11 ACC) comes to Charlottesville the winner of four of its last six games, but the team suffered two tough home losses against Boston College this past weekend. The young Blue Devil team is led by junior outfielder Will Piwnica-Worms, whose 18 stolen bases rank second in the ACC.
"They've got some speed on the base paths, so that's definitely something we're going to look at," Winiarski said.
The Blue Devils have struggled against ACC opponents this season, going only 2-10 against teams ranked in the top half of the conference. The ACC's top team, however, is wary of an upset.
"They're winning ball games in our league; they are winning a game or so every weekend," O'Connor said, "We've always had pretty good games with Duke and I would expect the same this weekend."\nFriday's game is slated for 6 p.m. Because of weather concerns, Saturday's game has been moved to Sunday. The doubleheader will begin at 1 p.m.
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