Doucette's ACC Baseball Notes: ACC Tournament

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We have arrived at the ACC tournament to be held in Louisville, Ky. The twelve teams all hunting for a league championship and the automatic bid to the NCAA field of 64 begins with a triple-header on Tuesday morning.

Let’s take one last look at how some of these teams arrived at this stage. The Virginia Cavaliers finished the season with the highest team batting average at .311 in 29 league games. One reason for the first place standing is Junior Adam Haseley. He was among the leaders in several different categories during the year. He finished fourth in batting with a .368 average, seventh in hits with 42, fifth in home runs with seven, second in run scored at 31, seventh in doubles 10, sixth in RBI with 28, third in total bases 73, third in on-base percentage .455, and third in slugging .540. When he was not bashing the baseball all over the park, he could pitch too, finishing the year with a 5-1 record in eight appearances.

North Carolina was another team that had players do their jobs to keep the Tar Heels at the top of the Coastal Division all year long. Junior Logan Warmoth was twelfth in batting at .333. That might not sound like a big deal but consider he was fifth in hits at 43, seventh in steals with seven, third in run scored with 27 and fifth in total bases 72. He was a valuable member of UNC offensive attack.

On the pitching side of things, one who stands out is Clemson Sophomore, Alex Eubanks. He ended his year with a 5-3 record with a 3.61 ERA. However, a deeper look at his numbers shows just how effective he was.

Alex led the conference in shutouts with two in 10 games. He also led in innings pitched at 67.1. He averaged just under seven innings per start. He was also the leader in complete games with two. His strikeouts numbers ranked him fourth at 71, a little under 10 a start, and his five wins had him tied for fifth with several other pitchers. Nice job by someone the Tigers are going to count on going forward.

Most, if not all the time here on the notes, we focus on the good that teams or players are doing. Sometimes though the bad has to be mentioned. Case in point the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. They are the twelve seed in this week tournament and a reason why could be their inability to come back late in games. The Irish have not won a game all year in the conference when trailing from the sixth inning on. The numbers when trailing after six are 0-25, after seven 0-23, after eight 0-25. For the season they have been outscored 272-231 with the worst inning being the ninth bring outscore 28-8. Bad bullpens can kill any team.

One of the hottest team down the stretch run was the Boston College Eagles who ended the year on a six-game winning streak and needed every one of them to get to Louisville. The number 11 seed will have their work cut for them as they are in pool play with North Carolina a team they got swept by in early April. Also, there is North Carolina State who they swept in April including a game at Fenway Park for ALS charity.

As mentioned at the start of the notes, pool play begins on Tuesday morning, three games are on the docket. The best week of ACC baseball is just hours away.