GREENSBORO — As any concerned pitching coach should, North Carolina’s Scott Forbes approached closer Michael Morin on Saturday and asked him how many pitches he had left in the tank.
The answer?
“Something like a million,” said Morin, who had already thrown a couple of innings at that point.
“He’s going to be conscious about my arm, and I respect that,” Morin said. “But when you’re battling, the last thing you want to do is come out of the game.”
That was good news for the Tar Heels, who took until the 12th inning to get on the board in their 4-0 win against rival North Carolina State.
While Morin didn’t quite throw a million pitches, his 52 pitches and five scoreless frames were huge in setting up the UNC win.
They also helped him make up for lost time.
Battling a stomach illness, Morin was unavailable for the first two games of the ACC Baseball Championship. The pitcher said he spent most of game one against Wake Forest inside the clubhouse throwing up.
But on Saturday, Morin was healthy and dominant. In fact, he retired the last 14 batters he faced.
“Every inning I went out there, I was just trying to throw up a zero,” Morin said. “That’s just my mentality in general.
“Usually I just have to come in for one inning.”
Still, the junior closer is no stranger to multi-inning appearances.
“He did it seven innings in Miami,” Forbes said. “He’s started before, and this may be something he may have to do for us in the postseason. I don’t think his arm has any problem with that.”
Morin threw 88 pitches in his seven-inning appearance against the Hurricanes on April 7.
In that game, though, the result was far different. He gave up the walk-off home run in the bottom of the 14th as the Tar Heels lost 4-3.
On Saturday, his final pitch was a triumphant one as it earned him his sixth win of the season.
And it came against a NewBridge Bank Park crowd of 10,229 — an ACC tournament record and the largest attendance figure for any college baseball game in North Carolina.
The crowd was largely pro-N.C. State, and that gave Morin added motivation to work through any lingering sickness.
“There’s 10,000 people out there, so it’s not really something that you need to push through,” Morin said. “I felt a little different, but when you got 8,000 rooting against you, it’s not too hard.”
He certainly made it look easy.
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