ACC Baseball News & Notes A Great First Weekend of Conference Play

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If the first weekend of league play is any indication of how the Atlantic Coast Conference season will be, then this has a chance to be quite a spring of baseball. Surprises took place last weekend as two teams that were ranked heading into play would find themselves unranked by the end of the weekend. The #9 Florida State Seminoles were swept at home by the Pittsburgh Panthers, while the #11 Duke Blue Devils lost a series to the Boston College Eagles. It seems strange to see the Seminoles at the bottom of a division which is the case for now. Let’s take a look at what else went on last weekend in the ACC.

The league made history over the weekend with an all-black umpiring crew working the set between Virginia and North Carolina. It marked the first time that an all-black crew worked in a Power-5 matchup or in Major League Baseball. The veteran crew that was assigned to this series were Linus Baker, Damien Beal, Greg Street, and Randy Watkins.

A site has been found for the conference tournament that is set to take place May 25-30. Last week, the ACC and the Charlotte Knights made the announcement that the tournament will take place at Truist Field in Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte was to be the host of the 2020 tournament that, as we all know, never took place. The decision to award this year’s championship was approved by the ACC baseball committee and its league membership.

There will be eight mid-week games on the docket for this Tuesday and Wednesday. The ACC network broadcast the game between Campbell and North Carolina State that took place on Tuesday afternoon. The league teams own a 38-13 (.745) record so far in non-conference games to date.

With the arrival of Boston College, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Virginia Tech into the polls this week. it means that each of the 14 league members has been ranked in the pre-season or during the first two weeks of the season. Nine teams appeared in several polls this week with Louisville claiming the #1 spot in the Perfect Game Top-25 poll. Georgia Tech, Miami, and Virginia are also ranked inside the top-10 in at least one publication.

The ACC Player of The Week is Georgia Tech freshman catcher Kevin Parada. The native of Pasadena, California went a blistering 10-for-16 at the plate for the Yellow Jackets as they went a perfect 4-0 last week. That included a three-game road sweep of then #8 N.C. State. Parada went a perfect 8-for-8 to begin the week at the dish. Five of his ten total hits went for extra-bases (two doubles, one triple, two home runs), and he came within one hit of the cycle versus the Wolfpack in his first career ACC game. He also drew three walks, slugged 1.250, and had an on-base percentage of .684 in the team’s four wins. With the season two weeks old, Parada leads all freshmen and is second overall in hitting (.524), RBI (10), Slugging (.1.048), On-Base percentage (.615).

The Pitcher of The Week is Pittsburgh starting pitcher Mitch Myers. In Friday’s season opener against Florida State, Myers went six shutout innings striking out a career-high 13 Seminoles hitters. He did give up two hits in recording his first conference victory. The win would jumpstart Pittsburgh to the series sweep in Tallahassee, Florida.

After starting his season 0-for-10 in the opening series sweep of Charleston Southern, Eagles first baseman, Jack Cunnigham, came back in a big way on the road at Duke. He went 8-for-12 at the plate with three doubles and two walks. He had his first career four-hit game in the series finale on Sunday. For the weekend, Cunnigham had an OPS of 1.631.

Next week we will be back with more from the ACC.