NC State wins series at Pittsburgh

The Pack will now stay in-state until mid-April

NC State captured an ACC road series win at Pittsburgh this past weekend, taking the first two games of the series before falling in the travel curfew shortened finale. The Wolfpack now sit at 17-7 overall and 4-2 in conference play. The Pack’s ACC record currently puts them in a tie with Clemson for 4th in the conference.

The series opener was all about Dominic Fritton. The junior lefty struggled with control in the opening inning, but settled in from there and was flat out dominant aside from a wind-aided, foul pole hitting home run in the 4th inning by Pitt DH Jackson Cooke. Fritton (4-1) tossed 107 pitches over 7.1 innings, surrendering just 2 runs (both earned) on 4 hits, 2 walks, and a HBP while striking out 13. It’s the third time over his last four starts that Fritton has struck out double-digit batters, and his combined line over those four starts is: 27.0 IP, 17 H, 7 R, 5 ER, 7 BB, 1 HBP, 43 K.

Andrew Shaffner (1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K) came on to finish off the game and earn his first save of the season.

State scratched a single run in the 2nd inning on a Luke Nixon walk, a Jet Gilliam double, and a Matt Heavner sacrifice fly. The Pack bats remained silent from there as Pitt starter Patrick Gardner (6.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K) put together his best outing of the year.

Finally, in the 8th inning, State broke through with a 3-run frame, with all production coming with two outs. Chris McHugh walked, Alex Sosa singled, and Brayden Fraasman singled to score McHugh and tie up the game.

Nixon then doubled into the right field corner to push Sosa and Fraasman home and give the Pack the winning lead.

Josh Hogue gave State a pair of insurance runs with a ball that landed on the 62nd Street Bridge.

Gilliam (2-for-3, 2B, BB) was the lone player in the game with multiple hits, while Nixon (1-for-3, 2B, R, 2 RBI, BB) and Ty Head (0-for-2, R, 2 BB) reached safely multiple times.

Game 2 was a tighter affair, although the Pack never trailed in the 6-4 victory. State got on the board first with a two-run 3rd inning. Heavner walked to lead off the inning and advanced to third on a Head double. Justin DeCriscio did the job and brought home Heavner on an RBI groundout and Hogue brought in Head on a sacrifice fly to right field for a 2-0 State advantage.

Head came through with another brilliant grab in the bottom of the inning, a play which ultimately saved a run as the Panthers would string together three singles later in the inning, although they wouldn’t scratch a run in the frame.

State added another run in the 4th with Nixon reaching on an error, stealing 2nd, and scoring on a Drew Lanphere single.

The Panthers did get a pair of runs back in the bottom of the 4th, but State had a quick response, grabbing both runs back in the top of the 5th. DeCriscio singled to start the inning, Hogue traded places with him on a fielder’s choice and then stole 2nd. McHugh walked and Sosa reached on an error to load the bases. Nixon brought in Hogue on an RBI groundout and Fraasman scored McHugh on a single up the middle.

Pitt again cut it to a 1-run game with a pair of runs in the 6th inning, and again State responded with a run of their own in the 7th. Sosa reached on an error, advancing to 2nd on the play. Nixon then singled to bring him in and push the Pack’s advantage back to two runs.

The 8th and 9th innings each saw Pitt threaten, loading the bases in the 8th and getting the tying run to the plate in the 9th, but the combination of Anderson Nance (2.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K), Jacob Dudan (0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K), and Andrew Shaffner (0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K) combined to secure the Wolfpack win. Shaffner picked up his second save with the final six pitches of the game, while Nance improved to 3-1 on the season. Heath Andrews (3.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3 K) started for State with the no-decision effort, and Cooper Consiglio (1.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 2 K) had a rough relief outing.

McHugh (2-for-4, R, BB) and DeCriscio (2-for-5, RBI) had multiple hits in Game 2. Heavner (1-for-3, R, BB) reached base safely twice.

With the series win in hand, the lineup mostly took Game 3 off, mustering 3 runs on just 4 hits. Granted, the game was shortened due to travel restrictions (and a bunch of Pitt shenanigans with replay review requests and stall tactics). There was also the highly questionable decision to bring in Shaffner to pitch for the third straight day, and the junior righty clearly wasn’t a sharp – not to mention the Panthers batters had their third look at him on the weekend – and he gave up what was ultimately the decisive run for the game in the bottom of the 7th.

All of State’s runs came in the 2nd inning. Gilliam walked with one out and Head doubled to right-center field to put together the scoring opportunity. Heavner put down the sacrifice bunt on the squeeze, with Gilliam putting together a heck of a slide to beat the tag.

DeCriscio walked, with ball four being a wild pitch that scored Head. A Pitt error on a Nixon grounder scored the final run for the Pack.

Pitt loaded the bases in the 1st with just one out, but Ryan Marohn worked out of the jam. He wasn’t as lucky in the 2nd as Pitt put up two runs on a pair of hits, a stolen base, and a wild pitch.

The tying run in the 5th inning also scored with the help of a wild pitch. The Panthers had a leadoff single, a groundout to move the runner up, and then he advanced one more base on a wild pitch before scoring on a sac fly.

Shaffner (0.0 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 0 K) was saddled with the loss, dropping his season record to 3-1. Marohn (5.2 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 6 K) gutted through his outing, although he clearly wasn’t the sharpest. Carson Kelly (0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K) and Dudan (1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K) made up the rest of the outs for the Pack.

State already seems set on whittling down the number of relief arms, using Shaffner thrice on the weekend and Dudan in back-to-back games. Granted, Dudan only threw 26 total pitches over those two outings, so that’s completely reasonable, but riding Shaffner for the third straight game is a major head scratcher. Hopefully State can start working in more relievers to take the strain off the more heavily used arms as (outside of the one horrendous inning in Game 3 against Virginia Tech) State has only used five relievers in ACC play, with Kelly’s one-out effort in Game 3 vs Pitt accounting for one of those five.

Head (1-for-2, 2B, R, BB, HBP), Nixon (1-for-3, BB, 3 SB), and Hogue (0-for-2, 2 BB) were the only Pack players to reach safely multiple times in the series finale. Nixon was a menace on the bases in the series, going 5-for-5 on stolen bases.

State will host USC Upstate for 6:00pm Tuesday game before heading to Durham for a three-game set with Duke next weekend.