Duke Baseball 2023

[Luke102452]

Duke’s fall World Series is tied at a game apiece. The rubber match is tomorrow at 1:15 at DBAP.

Team Tyler won today 8-7 after Team Blank won yesterday 2-1. Today Alex Stone and MJ Metz each hit 2-run homers and sophomore catcher Andrew Yu had 5 RBI.

The most impressive performance on the mound was freshman lefty James Tallon, who started for Team Blank and pitched 3 innings of no hit ball with 5 K’s.

[Luke102452]

Luke Fox, who was expected to be a weekend starter for Duke in 2023 has been lost for the season due to TJ surgery.

This is the second year in a row Duke has lost an expected staff ace for the season due to TJ surgery. Henry Williams was lost for the entire 2022 season due to TJ surgery before being drafted by the Padres in the 3rd round last spring.

[chrishoke]

Wow, awful news for Luke and Duke.

[DoubleBlue]

Couple notes on exhibition games;

Pitching looks much improved. Pollard hasn’t really used the top line pitchers in these games. Also haven’t seen much of the 3 freshmen pitchers rated among the top 10 freshmen pitchers in the country (Kassius Thomas, Oliver Santos, Aiden Weaver). However, the other freshmen pitchers used in these exhibition games (Gabriel Nard, Owen Proksch, and James Tallon) have been impressive. What I like most is very few walks. Last season several pitchers expected to have big years did not meet expectations and that was a huge reason for the struggles last year’s team faced. Pitching depth should be a strength of the 2023 team.

Luke Fox, who was expected to be a weekend starter for Duke in 2023 has been lost for the season due to TJ surgery.

This is the second year in a row Duke has lost an expected staff ace for the season due to TJ surgery. Henry Williams was lost for the entire 2022 season due to TJ surgery before being drafted by the Padres in the 3rd round last spring.

Unfortunate, but as you pointed out in the earlier post, pitching should (still) be a strength in 2023.

[Luke102452]

Unfortunate, but as you pointed out in the earlier post, pitching should (still) be a strength in 2023.

It remains to be seen if pitching will turn out to be a strength. There is lots of talent there, but it is mostly very young and untested talent. Many things will have to fall in place to avoid a repeat of last season.

One of the most disappointing things about last season was several pitchers expected to be high performers all had much poorer years than they had during the previous season when they won the ACC championship. Amazingly, all of those guys ended up being drafted by MLB.

[DoubleBlue]

It remains to be seen if pitching will turn out to be a strength. There is lots of talent there, but it is mostly very young and untested talent. Many things will have to fall in place to avoid a repeat of last season.

One of the most disappointing things about last season was several pitchers expected to be high performers all had much poorer years than they had during the previous season when they won the ACC championship. Amazingly, all of those guys ended up being drafted by MLB.

I see Brady Kirkpatrick is the new Pitching Coach this year, replacing Chris Gordon. Is this in response to the poor overall pitching performance last year? Have we seen any indication of changes to the pitcher's development program or coaching style as of yet?

Edit: Two other coaches are gone from last year - Josh Gordon (Associate Head Coach) and Jason Stein (Assistant Coach) - Ty Blankenmeyer is the new Assistant Coach/Recruiting Coordinator. One new position of Hitting Coach was added this year (Eric Tyler) for the first time. Total 6 coaches now, down from 7 last year. It looks like a bit of a coaching shake-up by Coach Pollard.

[duke2x]

Duke link: https://goduke.com/news/2023/2/7/bas...s-in-2023.aspx

Duke has 6 televised games in addition to the usual ACCNX coverage of home games.

[Luke102452]

D1 Baseball ranks Jonathan Santucci and Adam Boucher among top 200 starting pitchers

Alex Mooney is top 10 shortstop

Luke Storm is rated top 30 third basemen

[Luke102452]

Marcus Stroman will be in the WBC representing Puerto Rico

Matt Mervis will also be playing for Israel in the WBC

[Luke102452]

Duke opens their season with a 3 game weekend series vs St. Joseph’s at DBAP. Game times:
Friday: 4 pm
Saturday: 3 pm
Sunday: 1 pm

[Luke102452]

Starting Pitchers:
Friday: Santucci
Saturday: Boucher
Sunday: D3 grad transfer Alex Gow

[chrishoke]

Duke's first hit of the year is a Stone 3 run HR. Duke leads St. Joseph's 3-0.

[Luke102452]

Alex Stone with 3 run bomb. Duke up 3-0 after one.

[DoubleBlue]

Duke jumps to a 3-0 lead over St. Joseph's in game 1 of the weekend series on a 3-run homer by Alex Stone.

Edit: Sorry I guess we all were typing simultaneously.

[DoubleBlue]

Now 9-0 Duke in B5. Only 7 hits, with 1 HR, so pretty efficient run production.

[DoubleBlue]

Final 16-0. Nice start to the season!

[Luke102452]

Highlights:

Santucci - 4 innings, 2 hits, 9 k’s

Stone - double, homer, 3 RBI

Metz - 3-4 with double and homer

[duke2x]

Recognizing the limitation of the comparison, I thought we played a lot better today than our opening loss to VMI last year. St. Joe's is not going to be significantly different than VMI in terms of RPI at the year's end. Our pitching and bats looked good.

[Luke102452]

Recognizing the limitation of the comparison, I thought we played a lot better today than our opening loss to VMI last year. St. Joe's is not going to be significantly different than VMI in terms of RPI at the year's end. Our pitching and bats looked good.

The transfers appear to be significant upgrades to the offense. Metz, Beshears, Solomon, and DiGiacomo all have good power and hit well for average at their previous schools.

The pitching is tilted toward being very young, but are very talented.

I would almost immediately be concerned if they don’t sweep St. Joseph’s. The next week or so will tell us a lot. How well they do vs Liberty, a 3 game series with Baylor, and ECU will tell us a lot. However, the ACC is on par with the SEC and will be a tough road ahead.

[Bob Green]

Duke's first hit of the year is a Stone 3 run HR. Duke leads St. Joseph's 3-0.

I’m looking forward to following Duke baseball again this season. I missed the opener yesterday but intend to follow along today.