No. 14 Virginia Begins Road Stretch at Pitt

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – No. 14 Virginia (17-4, 3-3 ACC) will play six of its next seven games on the road beginning Friday (March 22) with a three-game ACC series at Pitt (11-7, 1-5 ACC). The series opener is scheduled for a 1 p.m. first pitch. The middle game will be played at 3 p.m. on Saturday (March 23) and the series will conclude on Sunday (March 24) at 1 p.m.

NOTE: Friday’s series opener was originally scheduled for a 3 p.m. start and has been moved to 1 p.m.

HOW TO FOLLOW
Watch: ACCNX
Listen: WINA (98.9 FM/1070 AM/WINA.com/Virginia Sports App) – Friday & Saturday only
Live Stats: VirginiaSports.com

Probable Starting Pitchers
Friday – 1 p.m.
Virginia: RHP Cullen McKay (1-0, 3.79 ERA, 19.0 IP, 12 BB, 20 SO)
Pitt: RHP Ryan Andrade (0-0, 6.98 ERA, 19.1 IP, 18 BB, 20 SO)

Saturday – 3 p.m.
Virginia: LHP Evan Blanco (1-1, 3.52 ERA, 23.0 IP, 8 BB, 26 SO)
Pitt: RHP Jack Sokol (2-1, 5.92 ERA, 24.1 IP, 9 BB, 21 SO)

 Sunday – 1 p.m.
Virginia: TBA
Pitt: LHP Ryan Reed (0-2, 9.00 ERA, 19 IP, 13 BB, 23 SO)

LEADING OFF

• Virginia will play six of its next seven games on the road, its longest road stretch of the season.
• Virginia is one of 17 schools with 17 or more wins this season. Of the 17 schools, four play in the ACC – Florida State (19), North Carolina (18), Clemson (18) and Virginia (17).
• It marks the 12th time in 21 seasons with Brian O’Connor at the helm Virginia has posted 17 or more wins in its first 21 games.
• Virginia enters the contest with the most hits (274) of any team in the country. The Cavaliers are batting .351 as a team, the fourth-highest average in the nation.
• UVA is 5-2 in games away from Disharoon Park this season and 2-2 in true road games. Friday will be UVA’s fifth road game of the season.

AGAINST PITT

• Virginia has won 21 of 30 all-time meetings against Pitt. The all-time series was first played in 1940, a 19-5 UVA victory.
• Pitt has taken each of the last three series from Virginia, winning six of the last nine meetings.
• Since Pitt entered the conference in 2014, 17 of the 24 games against UVA have been decided by three or less runs including each of the last four.
• Anthony Stephan hit the first home run of his collegiate career last season against the Panthers.
• In six career games played against the Panthers, Griff O’Ferrall is 7-for-23 (.391) with four doubles, seven runs scored and three RBI.
• Former Cavalier Chris Baker, who played on UVA’s College World Series team last season, is a current member of the Pitt program. He led the 2023 Cavaliers with 10 pinch hits and was at the plate for a walk-off win over Florida State on March 24. Baker had a key pinch-hit, RBI single in the seventh inning of UVA’s game three victory over Pitt last season.

ONE OF THE NATION’S TOP OFFENSES

• Virginia’s .351 team batting average is the fourth-highest of any college baseball team this season.
• The Cavaliers are ranked in the top-10 in the country in five other categories: hits (1st – 274), doubles (2nd – 62), scoring (4th – 10.6 rpg), runs (5th – 222) and slugging percentage (9th – .587).
• The Cavaliers lead the ACC runs scored, scoring, hits and doubles.
• Last season, Virginia led the country in batting average, doubles and hits. It ranked in the top-10 in seven different offensive categories.

MILESTONE WATCH

• Ethan Anderson has six doubles in his last seven games and is skyrocketing up the UVA career doubles list. On Tuesday against Georgetown, Anderson collected his 47th double of his career, tying him with Ryan Zimmerman for the 13th-most in program history. One more two-bagger will move him into a tie for ninth all-time at UVA.
• Anderson set the school mark for doubles in a season in 2023 with 26.

• Junior Griff O’Ferrall had 38 career stolen bases and is looking to become the first Cavalier to reach the 40 career stolen base mark since 2010 – Phil Gosselin (48), Tyler Cannon (49), Jarrett Parker (46).

COMEBACK CAVS

• UVA has faced a deficit in 16 of the 21 games this season and recorded 12 come-from-behind victories.
• The Cavaliers have recorded three walk-off victories and three wins when erasing a deficit of five or more runs.
• Of the Cavaliers 12 come-from-behind victories, the largest came against then-No. 18 Iowa on Feb. 24 in Jacksonville, Fla. where UVA trailed by six runs. They trailed by five runs in the opener against Wake Forest and five runs after the seventh inning stretch in the finale against the Demon Deacons.
• Virginia is 6-1 this season in games decided by one or two runs and have gone to extra innings on three different occasions. The Cavalier had seven one or two-run victories in all of 2023.
• Remarkably, UVA is 8-2 when opponents score first and 7-2 when opponents score in the first inning. Virginia has scored 42 runs in the sixth inning this season, its most potent frame.
• Prior to UVA’s 5-4, 10-inning walk-off win against Wichita State on Feb. 23, the Cavaliers had lost 39-straight games when trailing after seven.

ON THE MOUND

• Sophomore Cullen McKay will get his third-straight Friday night start for the Cavaliers and eighth start of his career. Coming off a masterful performance at Miami on March 8 (5.2 IP, 0 ER, 8 SO), McKay was victimized by seven runs against Wake Forest last week. The righthander allowed five of the runs in the second inning with four scored on a grand slam by Wake’s Adam Tellier. He took a no decision as the Cavaliers scored seven runs in the bottom half of the frame in an eventual 16-10 win.
• Lefthander Evan Blanco is the only Cavalier with five weekend starts this season. He battled two-time ACC Pitcher of the Week Chase Burns last Saturday, limiting Wake Forest to just three earned runs over five innings pitched but Burns fanned 13 batters and held the potent UVA attack to just two hits over the first seven innings in an eventual 9-3 Wake Forest victory.

PLAYER NOTABLES

• Jacob Ference continued his power surge on Tuesday against Georgetown, blasting his fourth home run in his last four starts. Against then-No. 7 Wake Forest he put together his fifth multi-home run performance of his career and first as a Cavalier. He had four two-home run games at Salisbury University over the last three seasons. Ference went 5-for-8 with five runs scored, two doubles, three home runs, five RBI and racked up 16 total bases in two starts against the Demon Deacons.

• Five of Casey Saucke’s seven home runs have come in the last six games, including a solo shot in the eighth inning against Georgetown on Wednesday. He has reached base in all but one game this season and 28 of his last 29 games dating back to last season.
• Ethan Anderson, who was at the plate for UVA’s walk-off win on Sunday vs. Wake Forest, is the only Cavalier to reach base safely in all 21 games this season. He is currently riding a 10-game hitting streak and has a double in six of his last seven games.
• Henry Ford enters the weekend with 33 hits, tied with Daniel Cuvet (Miami) for the most of any freshman in the country. His 2-for-4 effort against Georgetown was his team-best 12th multi-hit game of the season.
• Harrison Didawick is tied for fourth in the ACC with nine home runs, four of which have come in ACC play. In addition, Didawick is carrying UVA’s longest hitting streak (11 games) leads the ACC and ranks seventh in the country with 34 runs scored. He scored the game-winning run in UVA’s walk-off win over Wake Forest on Sunday (March 10).
• Henry Godbout is statistically the ACC’s toughest player to strikeout. He has gone down on strikes just three times in 65 at bats. He is one of three players in the country with 60 or more at bats to strikeout three of fewer times.
• Godbout and Ethan Anderson were the only Cavaliers in the starting lineup that didn’t strikeout in Wake Forest righthander Chase Burns’ 13-K performance on Saturday. Godbout tagged Burns for a homer in the second inning after he fanned four of the first five batters. It was only the third homer surrendered by Burns in 30.1 innings this season.