No. 14 Virginia Plays Boston College at Fenway Park on Thursday

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – No. 14 Virginia (31-11, 12-9 ACC) will participate in the 12th annual ALS Game Awareness Game at Fenway Park on Thursday (April 25) in Boston to open a three-game series against Boston College. The opening game is scheduled to air live on ACC Network at 7 p.m. The remaining two games of the series will be played on campus at the Harrington Athletic Village.

HOW TO FOLLOW
Watch: ACC Network (Thursday) | ACCNX (Friday & Saturday)
Listen: WINA – 98.9 FM/1070 AM/WINA.com – Thursday & Friday only
Live Stats: VirginiaSports.com

Probable Starting Pitchers
Thursday  – 7 p.m.
Virginia: LHP Evan Blanco (4-2, 4.62 ERA, 50.2 IP, 14 BB, 54 SO)
Boston College: LHP A.J. Colarusso (3-5, 7.28 ERA, 47.0 IP, 25 BB, 43 SO)

Friday – 3 p.m.
Virginia: LHP Owen Coady (1-0, 3.28 ERA, 24.2 IP, 14 BB, 26 SO)
Boston College: RHP John West (1-2, 5.34 ERA, 55.2 IP, 23 BB, 45 SO)

Saturday – 1 p.m.
Virginia: RHP Joe Savino (0-1, 2.25 ERA, 4.0 IP, 0 BB, 5 SO)
Boston College: TBA

ALS AWARENESS GAME – Thursday April 25 at Fenway Park

The game has been played annually in honor of former Boston College baseball captain Pete Frates since his ALS diagnosis in 2012. This year marks its fifth time being played at Fenway Park. Pete Frates ’07 captained the Eagles his senior season and returned to the team as director of operations in 2012 following a diagnosis of ALS at the age of 27. A driving force behind the world-wide “Ice Bucket Challenge” in 2014, Frates helped raise over $220 million dollars toward research for a cure. Frates passed away in 2019 at the age of 34.

LEADING OFF

• Thursday’s game against at Fenway Park will be the first time in program history that Virginia has played a regular season game at an MLB ballpark.
• The Cavaliers come into the series ranked No. 14 in the D1Baseball.com top-25 poll. UVA has been no lower than 17 (March 11) and have been as high as No. 9 (March 25).
• UVA’s 31 wins are tied with North Carolina for the third-most wins of any team in the ACC. The Cavaliers are one of 11 teams nationally with 31 wins.
• Virginia is seeking back-to-back ACC road series wins after taking two out of three at Louisville earlier this month. The Cavaliers are 8-6 in true road games 11-6 in games away from Disharoon Park this season.
• UVA will play their final ACC road series of the season. Virginia will play eight of its next nine games at home.
• Entering Thursday’s contest, Virginia’s 520 hits are the most of any team in the country, 23 more than its Austin Peay. The Cavaliers also lead the nation in doubles and rank in the top-10 in DI college baseball in seven categories – batting average (2nd), runs (2nd), scoring (5th), on-base percentage (9th) and slugging percentage (9th).

AGAINST BOSTON COLLEGE

• Virginia owns a 26-7 all-time record against Boston College in series that first began in 2006 when the Eagles joined the ACC.
• Virginia and Boston College will meet for the first time since the 2022 season. UVA completed a three-game sweep of the Eagles at Disharoon Park, including a walk-off win in the series opener. It marked the sixth walk-off win for UVA in the all-time series.
• The Cavaliers won 15 of the first 16 meeting against Boston College from 2006-2011.
• UVA took two out of three against the Eagles in Chestnut Hill on the final weekend of the 2021 regular season.

ON THE MOUND

• A native of Woburn, Mass., located 13 miles from Fenway Park, Evan Blanco will get the start on the mound Thursday night. He will start a series opener for the third-straight weekend.
• Blanco was victimized by a six-run third inning in his last start against Georgia Tech but still logged five innings. He’s pitched five or more innings in his last eight starts. His last road outing in Louisville on April 12 he struck out a career-high 11 batters in six innings of work.
• Lefthander Owen Coady will make his third-straight weekend start. The Cavaliers are 4-0 in games that he starts this season. He pitched 4.1 innings last weekend against Georgia Tech, allowed one earned run and struck out a pair. Coady worked around a season-high five walk and got a no-decision in the 8-7, 11-inning walk-off victory.
• Joe Savino is slated to make his fourth start of the year after returning to action on April 2. Against Georgia Tech last weekend he allowed a pair of unearned runs in two innings of work, his longest of his three outings as a Cavalier. Savino as an All-CAA honorable mention selection as a reliever last season, has 173 collegiate innings under his belt and will make his 22nd career start.

MILESTONE WATCH

• After four home runs in the midweek against Liberty, Virginia has 76 long balls on the season, the second-most in a single season in program history. Last year UVA set the program mark, launching 83 homers in 65 total games. The three highest single-season home run totals have occurred in the last three seasons.
• First year Henry Ford hit his 15th home run of the season on Tuesday against Liberty to match Mark Reynolds’ program record for home runs as a freshman.

• Griff O’Ferrall is currently ranked 10th on UVA’s career hit list with 244. He is one hit behind current UVA undergraduate assistant coach and UVA Baseball Hall of Famer, John Hicks who had 245 from 2009-11. O’Ferrall set UVA’s single-season record for hits in 2023, compiling 106 as the leadoff man for UVA’s College World Series team.

MOST CAREER HITS IN UVA HISTORY

• O’Ferrall is also climbing UVA’s all-time runs list and has crossed the plate 176 times in three seasons, the sixth-most of any Cavalier.

MOST CAREER RUNS IN UVA HISTORY

• Ethan Anderson also has chance at matching a John Hicks career mark. Anderson has 53 career doubles, currently one behind Hicks’ three-year total of 54. Anderson already owns the program’s single-season doubles record with 26 in 2023.

MOST CAREER DOUBLES IN UVA HISTORY

• Griff O’Ferrall is coming off a 5-for-5 performance on Sunday against Georgia Tech, the fourth Cavalier this season to put forth a five-hit game. He also matched a school record, scoring five runs in the contest. O’Ferrall has hit safely in 13-straight games, the longest active streak on the team and the second hitting streak of 10 or more games this season. He has hit in 30 of his last 31 games.

• O’Ferrall is statistically the toughest batter in the ACC to strike out, fanning once every 12.3 at bats.

• Jacob Ference leads the team and ranks third in the ACC with a .408 batting average. He’s two shy of matching his career-high after he broke Salisbury University’s single-season home run record with 14 last season.

• Bobby Whalen did it all for the Cavaliers in Tuesday’s 14-4 run-rule win over Liberty. He belted his first home run of the season to break a 2-2 tie and scored from second base on a wild pitch. In the outfield he made two outstanding plays from his center field position. On Saturday against Georgia Tech, Whalen delivered a walk-off single in the bottom of the 11th inning. It was Whalen’s second career walk-off hit. While at Indiana, he recorded a walk-off against Morehead State on March 17, 2023 on a similar single through the right side. Whalen has made five-straight starts for the Cavaliers where he’s produced eight hits. His .404 batting average is fourth-highest in the ACC.

• Casey Saucke had his 121-game consecutive start streak end after missing the opener against Georgia Tech. He played the final two games of the series and on Sunday matched a career-high with four RBI. It was the second-straight ACC Sunday with a four-RBI performance.