Duke sweeps UNC baseball team for first time since 1994

DURHAM — Wild pitches. Errant throws. Routine plays made to look impossible.

No. 19 North Carolina (15-12, 5-7 ACC) made those sorts of plays in bunches in its weekend series at unranked Duke (17-12, 7-5), which swept the Tar Heels for the first time since 1994. UNC last lost a series to Duke in 2010.

UNC made eight errors in the three-game series, and the Tar Heels’ sloppiness in the field played a prominent role in each of its three losses, which extended the team’s season-long losing streak to six.

After committing 56 errors in 60 games in 2013, the Tar Heels have committed 40 in 27 games this season.

“We don’t play perfect baseball right now,” shortstop Michael Russell said .

“We’ll make a big error with a guy on third, or with nobody out or with one out. We’re not doing the fundamental, routine stuff that we really need to do.”

Freshman starter Zac Gallen had an abysmal first inning Sunday, walking two batters and plunking three more before being pulled after a third of an inning .

“With young players, you don’t know,” coach Mike Fox said of Gallen, who he called the pitching staff’s best strike thrower.

“Sometimes it’s a mixed bag, but that was very shocking that he started the game that way.”

UNC escaped the first inning, trailing just 2-0, and took a 3-2 lead in the fifth inning on a Russell RBI single, but another disastrous frame left the Tar Heels reeling .

Duke’s Chris Marconcini led off the fifth and reached base when UNC second baseman Wood Myers couldn’t cleanly field a grounder to his left .

Marconcini would later score, and two more Duke runs would come in — on a bunt single and a wild pitch — to give Duke a two-run lead.

“When we get a lead, we come out and start an inning with an error and a walk,” Fox said.

“In this league, if you do that you’re setting yourself up for a difficult inning.”

UNC’s series was chock full of difficult innings.

After trailing 6-1 Saturday, Duke put together a big fifth inning, tying the game at six, when catcher Korey Dunbar attempted to catch a runner stealing, but made a poor throw , scoring a runner from third.

Duke won the game, 9-8, on Ryan Deitrich’s walk-off single in the 12th , which was facilitated by a botched pickoff attempt by UNC pitcher Spencer Trayner that sent the game-winning run to third base.

“If we can find a way to lose, we seem to be finding it right now,” Fox said after Saturday’s 9-8 loss.

The Tar Heels held leads in all three losses but allowed Duke to climb back into games with walks, errors and hit batsmen. UNC pitchers allowed nine walks and hit three batters Sunday .

Russell, playing shortstop, escaped the series without committing an error, but that could not be said about his fellow infielders, who committed five of the eight errors this weekend.

The junior couldn’t point to any one problem area for the infield, which included as many as three freshmen during stretches this weekend , but he said the group could improve with more game experience.

“It’s nothing really we need to work on,” Russell said. “It’s all stuff we’re capable of doing, so it’s less working on it, and more actually doing it. We’ll get better.”

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