UNC takes pitcher's duel from Duke

DURHAM — One is a 6-foot-4 lefty from Georgia. The other is a 5-foot-9 righty from New York.

One gets batters to whiff on his off-speed pitches. The other touches the mid-90s with his fastball.

Both are among the elite pitchers in the ACC, but on Friday, it was the crafty lefthander, Kent Emanuel of North Carolina, who emerged victorious.

Matched up against Duke junior Marcus Stroman — a surefire first-round draft pick — Emanuel tossed eight innings of one-run baseball, as the No. 8 Tar Heels (36-13, 17-8 ACC) defeated Duke 2-1 in the first of a three-game series at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

“It’s a lot of fun. It’s definitely more intense,” said Emanuel about the pitching matchup. “The pressure’s definitely there when you’re facing a guy like that. You know you’re not going to score too many.”

For the most part, the pitcher’s duel lived up to its billing. But it was more of a struggle for Stroman than it was for Emanuel.

The righthander gave up a hit on his second pitch — a sharp single off the bat of center fielder Chaz Frank. And a large portion of his night was spent wiggling his way out of some precarious situations.

His defense didn’t help. Duke committed three errors on the evening, one of which was directly responsible for the first UNC run of the game in the second inning.

The Tar Heels scored their second run seconds later, as Frank drilled a triple to the right-field wall to plate Adam Griffin. It was UNC’s only extra-base hit of the night.

“He’s tough to hit,” Frank said. “You definitely can’t miss his mistakes, and I didn’t do that too many times tonight. I hit the pitches that he didn’t want me to hit.”

As Frank slid into third with his triple, it seemed as though the Tar Heels had Stroman rattled, but Stroman managed to collect himself and throw zeros on the scoreboard for his remaining five innings, racking up eight strikeouts in the process.

“We had him right where we wanted him. After two innings we had him over 40 (pitches),” UNC coach Mike Fox said. “And we didn’t let him off the hook. He got himself two quick, low-pitch innings, and that got him through the seventh.”

Still, with Emanuel on the mound, the damage had already been done.

The lefthander was an enigma for the Duke offense, blanking the Blue Devils through six innings before giving up an RBI single in the seventh. It was the first run Emanuel had given up in 24 innings.

“Lately, I’ve been pitching well because I haven’t been missing up, and I haven’t been missing over the plate much,” Emanuel said. “If I’m not hitting my spot, it’s still usually a pitch that’s tough for hitters to square up, so I think that’s definitely what contributed to my outing today.”

Emanuel also gave the Tar Heels some much-needed length, throwing eight innings, allowing just five hits and striking out six before giving way to closer Michael Morin in the 9th.

The performance was no surprise to Fox and the Tar Heels, who have seen him come through in the clutch since he broke in as a freshman last season.

“I think a lot of that experience from last year and pitching in big games, I mean, he had to know coming over here that runs were going to be hard to come by,” Fox said. “It’s hard to pitch like that when you feel like one or two runs might win this game.

“It helped to get him at least a little a cushion there, but I don’t know if he really needed it.”