Virginia counting on offense staying hot in big home stand against No. 7 Louisville

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Virginia is hoping its bats stay hot for a big, three-game homestand against No. 7 Louisville beginning Friday at 6 p.m. at Disharoon Park.

The Cavaliers (16-15, 8-13 ACC) have won six of their last eight games and hope to continue the momentum against the Atlantic Division leading Cardinals (20-10, 12-5 ACC). UVA won series at No. 6 Georgia Tech and most recently, last weekend at Clemson.

During its last seven road games, Brian O’Connor’s team has posted at least nine hits five times, including 13-hit performances against the Yellow Jackets and Tigers in the third game of each of those series.

Hitting has been the biggest issue for UVA, which hasn’t lived up to preseason expectations. While the Cavaliers rank No. 2 in the ACC in team pitching with a .373 ERA, it is quite different from the offensive standpoint. Virginia is No. 13 out of 14 ACC teams in team batting with a .238 average and no players among the conference’s top 20 hitters.

That’s the main reason UVA is sixth in the seven-team Coastal Division. But there is hope.

“It’s been offensive production,” O’Connor said about his team’s recent success. “We’ve been a little more opportunistic. We’ve had some guys step up.

“I know you hear me say it a lot, but in order to have offensive games where you’re going to score 6, 7, 8 runs, that’s what you need to do in this league for the good majority of games because very few of them are 2-1 or 3-1 type games. You have to have multiple guys in your lineup have hits and RBI.”

Zack Gelof is one of those guys, batting .371 (13 for 35), a couple of home runs and eight RBI from his leadoff spot, where he has spent the last seven games in the batting order.

Devin Ortiz, who has the longest hit streak by a Cavalier this season (currently 11 straight games), has hit .395 (17 for 43) during that span, including four doubles, three triples, two homers and 10 RBI. He’s UVA’s best in ACC play at .313 (21 for 67), including all four of his round trippers coming against conference opponents.

Then there’s Kyle Teel, who comes into the Louisville series with Virginia’s best batting average at .317 (26 for 82). The freshman leads the team in home runs with four, and drove in a season-high four runs in the series-clinching win at Clemson. He has multi-hit performances in three of his last four games, something that O’Connor pointed out was crucial for players to step up.

Chris Newell is another player delivering, driving in five runs in the middle game at Clemson, including a three-run home for an 8-4 UVA lead late in the contest.

“I feel good about how we’re trending, and hopefully we can keep that moving forward because that’s what it’s going to take,” said O’Connor, who is only two wins shy of becoming the eighth coach in ACC history to reach 300 conference wins. “These last two weekends we’ve gotten a lot more consistent production.”

O’Connor said that taking those two series has lifted the team’s spirit and confidence heading down the home stretch. The Cavaliers are set to play seven of the next eight games at Disharoon, with road games at VCU and Virginia Tech. UVA won’t leave the Commonwealth until May 20 for a regular-season ending series at Boston College.

“There’s no question that it has helped our locker room,” the coach said. “Just being around the team, there’s smiles on the faces, there’s excitement, joy. That happens when you have success when you’re below the level that you believe you should be. I certainly believe there’s a good, positive feeling over the last couple of weeks on our team, and that’s what I’m talking about with trying to gain some momentum. We’re putting the pieces together.”

Pitching is the least of Virginia’s worries. Led by Andrew Abbott and Mike Vasil in the starting rotation and Blake Bales from the bullpen, the Cavaliers have things covered on that end. All those pitchers need is run support.

Abbott, 3-5, 3.19 ERA, is scheduled to start in Friday’s game against Louisville’s Michael Kirian, 4-0, 2.75 ERA, in a battle of left-handers. Vasil, a right-hander (5-2, 2.98 ERA) will start Saturday (4 p.m.), while southpaw Nate Savino (1-1, 2.65 ERA) is slated to start Sunday (1 p.m.).

The entire Virginia-Louisville series will be carried live on the ACC Network.

UVA has won four of the last five games against Louisville, including two of three in Charlottesville in 2019.

Abbott’s 66 strikeouts are the second-most in the ACC and tied for ninth in the country. Vasil comes into the Louisville series tied for the ACC lead in wins with five and owns the fifth-lowest ERA in the league.

Meanwhile, Bales is on an incredible streak, having appeared in 17 games this season, all from the bullpen, and has not surrendered a single run.

“What it comes down to is do you execute?” O’Connor said. “There’s a very, very fine line. You think about how good Andrew Abbott has pitched this year. You look at his statistics, and they’re really elite, but his record doesn;t reflect that. He’s 3-5, and that just shows that there’s a lot of good No. 1’s (opposing pitchers) in this league as well. Not only does he have to be excellent, we have to be on spot offensively.”