Louisville Baseball Opponent Preview: Seton Hall Pirates

The Cards Need a Bullpen Boost

I’ll make a quick observation, and then dive right into Seton Hall and the stats for this weekend’s series.

Body Language is a big deal. I’ve been in sales/business development for a long time, and almost every bit of what is a person is conveying emotionally can be ‘spoken’ without words. You can tell everyone how enthused, how prepared, how great you are…but if your body language and the way you carry yourself don’t match that, then it’s all fake juice.

Louisville’s body language Tuesday vs. Morehead State was…well…bad. I don’t need any other adjective. It wasn’t at the beginning, mind you, because the Cards jumped out to a 2-0 lead when Jimmy Nugent torched a ball into left center for a double. Jimmy needs to be that guy.

Things changed when starting pitcher Colton Hartman exited the game. Hartman pitched well. He’s one of those guys who needed a quality outing, and he got one, going four complete innings of four-hit/three-run (all earned) ball. The tide started to shift when he was pulled to start the fifth inning in lieu of Peter Michael.

From there, the wheels fell off. Michael lasted only a third of an inning, facing five batters, giving up three hits, a walk, and a strikeout. Doesn’t sound horrible until you realize those three hits went for four earned runs. Joe Olson struggled with location, walking two in another 0.1 inning appearance. Zane Stahl stopped the bleeding temporarily, going 1.1 scoreless innings with a strikeout and a walk.

Then, TJ Schlageter. He did give up one fewer hit than Peter Michael, but matched his totals by facing five batters and giving up four earned runs in 0.1 innings of work. Dan McDonnell mentioned Schlageter maybe more than any other pitcher in the preseason and the run-up to the season opener. So far, TJ has looked like a deer in headlights. I really want his redemption arc to be awesome, and also come sooner than later.

Jack Brown went 0.1 innings giving up an HBP and a walk. When Brown is good, he’s great. When he’s not, he’s almost like clockwork to throw the ball right at the batter.

Casen Murphy relieved Brown and pitched 1.1 innings with a pair each of strikeouts and walks. Kudos to Casen. In the fall, he looked dominant. It’s there, and if he can avoid giving up the big swing, he can provide solid innings of support.

Bryce Koch faced two batters and walked them both, one with the bases loaded. That’s been a big issue for this team, and it seems like guys are just flat-out aiming and that’s a bad sign.

Nick Ballard pitched the ninth and struck out the side around giving up a hit. Maybe Ballard has the stuff.

I didn’t do a video recap because it would have just been rehashing all of the above and saying this – The ACC is loaded with teams who will hit the ball. Miami, UNC, and Notre Dame all sport guys who are leaders nationally in batting average. The two at the top of that list are on the same team (Miami). If pitchers cannot locate, if they are aiming, and if they are somehow psyched out by the moment or the situation, then they need to be at the back of the rotation.

Someone on Twitter made the following reply to a tweet about this exact thing saying “it’s March 4th, we will be fine.” To that I say, ‘I hope.’ It happened last year, where it just clicked in the Regional. I’m going on record saying right now that if that happens again – wonderful. I’ll take a Super or another trip to Omaha any day, but living and dying by that possibility is no way to go about a season.

Louisville pitching needs to establish a different identity with a sense of immediate urgency, because the problems that have kept this program from the postseason in three of the past six years are these problems, and it’s becoming the scout for opposing hitters on the relief staff.

Can the Cards Contain The Pirates

No doubt, if the opposing coaching staffs have seen what we’ve seen with Louisville pitchers, the strategy for any team, starting Friday with Seton Hall (4-4), is going to be as follows:

1. Chase the starter by being aggressive. High risk leads to high reward.
2. Get into middle relief early and take, take, take until you get a belt-high number one or a hanging breaking ball.
3. $$score runs$$

The Pirates’ record is not very noteworthy; they lost to Boston College in Puerto Rico to open the season, and their final game in Puerto rico against NC State was canceled, so against the ACC they’re 0-1 thus far. They split with George Mason and beat Merrimack in a close, high-scoring game while part of the ‘Swig and Swine Classic’ in Charleston, South Carolina, and then dropped their most recent series at Southern Illinois before yet another cancelation against local squad Bellarmine this past week. However, the Cards haven’t had the best success historically vs the PIrates from back when they were conference foes in the Big East, so things need to go right for them this weekend.

It can’t be ignored that in that loss to Boston College in Puerto Rico, Left Fielder Justin Ford belted a home run, and while celebrating around the bases, suffered one of the more gruesome lower leg/ankle injuries you’ll ever see (that I won’t link to because if you really want to see that, you can easily find it, but I don’t like posting guys getting hurt). The loss of Ford certainly put a damper on the early season that still clouds the program.

Their everyday starting lineup only boasts two guys batting over .300: Third Baseman Ryan Frontera (.367), and Right Fielder Aiden Dill (.346). Their offense doesn’t light fireworks and doesn’t do much particularly well; as a team they have only five home runs, and 16 doubles on the season. Dill, however, has 10 stolen bases and 13 walks so far this year. If he gets on (at which he’s good), he’s going to move, and prove to be a challenge for Jimmy Nugent and George Baker.

Shortstop Nick Tomasetto leads the team with nine RBIs, but this is a batting order where Louisville can start to right a lot of wrongs.

From the mound, the Friday starter is likely to be righty Steven Svenson (0-0, 3.95 ERA, 1.24 WHIP) who leads the team in ERA and innings pitched with 13.2. Saturday, the Cards are likely to see left-hander Jayden Barroquiero (0-2, 8.74 ERA, 1.41 WHIP), and Sunday the ball will likely go to another southpaw in John Downing (0-0, 4.50 ERA, 1.88 WHIP). Pirates pitching hasn’t been stellar, so Louisville will not have many excuses to not break out of the lackluster offensive performance from the Murray State Game.

What do the Stats Say

It should be noted that stats are skewed slightly because the sample size is not the same, with Seton Hall only having played eight games, to Louisville’s 12. However, the trend and narrative should be the same. Louisville is clearly the better offensive team. Seton Hall has fared better pitching. Louisville ranks sixth in the nation in Fielding Percentage, and has a stellar defense.

This series comes down to two things, and you can probably guess them:

1. Hit the ball. Louisville can’t fall asleep offensively again. Morehead pitchers made them hit weak fly balls, pop-ups, and daisy-cutting grounders. Solid contact will get results against the Pirates.
2. Make Seton Hall batters work. A team that is by all accounts overmatched should not be able to work Louisville’s pitchers from ahead in counts. Set the tone, keep eyes moving, and don’t let them sit on a belt-high pitch that they’re looking to make leave the park.

I feel like I’ve started to repeat a lot of this, but the Cards are in danger of this becoming their pitching identity this season. Relying on getting it straight in the postseason may not cut it for a second-straight year. Nothing would silence the grumbles and lower the eyebrows like leaving no doubt against a team that matches up perfectly with how Louisville can start setting some things straight.

First pitch from Jim Patterson Stadium is scheduled for Friday, March 6th, at 3:00pm.

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