Tuesday’s game was certainly another impressive offensive performance for the No. 13 Virginia baseball team, but the biggest factor hindering Yale may have been something entirely different: Mother Nature. On a blustery day at Davenport Field, strong winds played tricks with both teams, pushing and pulling fly balls in the air.
Luckily for the Cavaliers (18-2, 4-2 ACC), the gusts seemed to blow in their favor, and they took advantage of multiple defensive lapses from the Bulldogs (1-8, 0-0 Ivy League) to jump out to an early lead. The run support was more than enough for freshman starter Trey Oest, who dazzled again in a 14-3 drubbing at home.
“I don’t think there’s anything that impacts a game more from a weather standpoint than wind,” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said. “It certainly proved to be the case today. It was a very, very challenging day out there … and obviously it impacted quite a few balls in that game.”
The weather difficulties were evident from the start and did nothing to help a poor start from Yale sophomore starter Ben Joseph. After he walked the bases loaded in the bottom of the first inning, a balk and a wild pitch brought home two runs with just one out.
In the ensuing at bat, sophomore outfielder Derek Fisher hit a shallow fly ball that caught the wind and carried over Yale junior shortstop Cale Hanson’s head and nearly caused a three-man collision in center field as the second baseman and center fielder rushed in to help. The confusion allowed sophomore center fielder Brandon Downes to come home to give the Cavaliers an early 3-0 lead. Sophomore outfielder Mike Papi and sophomore third baseman Nick Howard each reached on misplayed fly balls of their own, but the Cavaliers were not able to capitalize.
As the Yale fielders struggled, Virginia’s defense was aided by a strong performance from Oest, who used careful placement and pitch selection to keep the ball on the ground. In just his fourth collegiate start, Oest continued to impress, giving up just one run in six innings of work.
“That’s why we recruited Trey,” O’Connor said. “Certainly, in all of his starts he’s done a nice job and he backed it up again tonight with another quality start. He’s not a guy that’s going to get a ton of strikeouts, but he’s going to hopefully get teams to not square him up very often and get some weak ground balls like he did today.”
Oest was given a big cushion to pitch from by the Virginia offense, which continued its strong early performance throughout the game. Redshirt senior Jared King had another huge day, going 2-for-3 with 3 RBIs to continue a sizzling run by the first baseman. After a dismal early season slump, King has come on strong recently, going 8-for-16 with six RBIs in his last four games.
“I just think I’ve really just tried to simplify things,” King said. “Coming into the season, I probably put a little to much pressure on myself, just tried a little too much those first couple weekend. . . I’m just letting the hits come as they will.”
An 8-0 lead after the third inning gave O’Connor the opportunity to mix up his lineup mid-game and he seized it, replacing all but two of his starting fielders during the game. The most important substitution may have been freshman catcher Robbie Coman, who made his first appearance behind the plate this season and immediately contributed, driving in a run on a double in the seventh inning.
Coman had been injured for the first month of the season, which meant that there was little relief at catcher for starting sophomore Nate Irving, who has played the majority of the team’s innings. O’Connor occasionally pulled Downes from center field to spell Irving, but the return of a true backup catcher should help the Cavaliers.
“I like [Coman] as a player,” O’Connor said. “Certainly he’s going to be getting more time, which is important for [Irving]. That’s a difficult position — to catch every inning — but now that [Coman’s] cleared to play, he’s going to get more opportunities.”
Up 10-0 in the eighth, Virginia added two more runs as Yale senior catcher Chris Piwinski missed a high infield pop-up from Downes and threw the ball away in his attempt to correct the mistake. Two batters later, the Cavaliers added two more runs on a deep home run from sophomore third baseman Kenny Towns to left field. The shot was Towns’ fourth of the season and gave him a team-high 25 RBIs.
Oest was relieved by freshmen Nate Kirby and Cameron Tekker and sophomore Nathaniel Abel, who each added an inning of work. Yale managed to pick up two runs on a home run in the top of the ninth, but it was not enough to erase the Cavalier lead, as Virginia took the 14-3 win in stride.
Virginia will look to continue its strong play Wednesday as the squad turns to freshman Josh Sborz for his first collegiate start.
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