Wake Forest opened the season as the top-ranked team in the country. Duke has made headlines with numerous quality wins in the first month of the season. Florida State came out swinging with 19 straight wins. And Clemson was the talk of college baseball a few weeks ago after its two spectacular victories against the Seminoles.
What about North Carolina? Is there a chance the Tar Heels are the best team in the ACC?
That’s entirely possible, after Scott Forbes’ club improved to 25-4 overall and 10-2 in league play with a convincing three-game sweep at Wake Forest by scores of 6-5 (10 innings ), 10-6 and 14-10. . The Tar Heels became the first team to reach Wake’s star right-hander Chase Burns, touching up the Tennessee transfer for nine hits and six earned runs in 6 1/3 innings (although Burns struck out 14). They also became the first team to sweep the Demon Deacons in Winston-Salem since 2011.
The Tar Heels were successful with the long ball, hitting 14 home runs in the three games, including four from Parks Harber (three in one game) and three from Luke Stevenson and Casey Cook.
Around the horn
In early March, Kentucky began a three-game home series with consecutive losses to Kennesaw State by a combined score of 23-3. Since then, the Wildcats have lost just one game.
On Sunday, Kentucky topped Ole Miss 15-1 to complete the program’s first-ever sweep of Oxford and improve to 24-4 overall and 8-1 in the SEC. With that sweep at Ole Miss and their series win at Missouri two weeks ago, the Wildcats are responsible for two of the four series won by SEC road teams in 2024.
Kentucky also started strong a year ago, winning nine of its first 10 league games before going 7-13 the rest. Does Nick Mingione’s team hold up this time?
There’s still a lot of work to do, but USC has won seven of its last 10 games after starting the season with just four wins in its first 16 games. The Trojans swept a two-game set from then-No. 2 Oregon State this weekend, with wins 2-1 Thursday and 17-4 Friday (Saturday’s game was canceled due to rain).
On Thursday, ace Caden Aoki allowed just one earned run and four hits in six innings. On Friday, the Trojans took advantage of six Oregon State errors (three by All-America second baseman Travis Bazzana) en route to a stress-free 13-point victory.
Brody Brecht is having a rough start in the Big Ten. The Iowa right-hander, a projected first-round pick in the 2024 MLB Draft, allowed five hits and seven earned runs in just three innings of a 16-9 home loss to Minnesota on Friday. The week before, in a 10-3 loss at Purdue, Brecht allowed seven hits and three earned runs in five innings.
Brecht’s strikeouts are up in 2024 — from 12.7 per nine innings in 2023 to 16.7 — but his WHIP has increased from 1.27 to 1.63 and he’s averaging fewer than five innings per departure.
Three different SEC West teams have won the last three national titles. LSU, the 2023 champion, hopes to avoid the same fate as the two previous winners: finishing in last place in the division the following season.
The Tigers fell to 2-7 in league play after being swept at Arkansas over the weekend.
So how does this compare to Mississippi State in 2022 and Ole Miss in 2023? The Bulldogs started 4-5 the year after their title and finished 9-21 in the SEC. Ole Miss went 1-8 in its first nine games en route to a 6-24 league record last season.
Arkansas, meanwhile, is 8-1 in the SEC and ranked No. 1 in the nation. And while the Razorbacks are clearly an elite team – led by a fantastic starting rotation – it’s worth noting that the three teams they’ve faced (Missouri, Auburn and LSU) have a combined record of 4-23 in the SEC (3-15 in games). not against Arkansas).
Missouri’s struggles continue. The Tigers scored a total of two runs (on 10 hits) in a weekend sweep at Vanderbilt and have now scored two runs or fewer in seven of their nine SEC games.
Missouri is hitting .144 in championship games (nearly 100 percentage points worse than the second-worst team) and has just nine extra-base hits in nine games.
Stanford, the only team to appear in the last three College World Series, is 11-13 overall and 4-5 in the Pac-12 after losing two of three games at Utah this weekend. The Cardinal haven’t missed the playoffs since 2016, under former coach Mark Marquess.
Stanford suffered heavy losses to last year’s team that won the Pac-12 with a 23-7 record (five games ahead of second-place Oregon State), including its top four hitters in the one of the most powerful offenses in the country as well as number 1. 1 pitcher Quinn Matthews. Most of these losses were expected, but the Cardinal were dealt a major blow when All-America outfielder Braden Montgomery transferred to Texas A&M during the offseason. Montgomery, who also pitched for the Cardinal, hit .381 with 16 homers and 47 RBIs for the Aggies.
Florida shook up its pitching rotation over the weekend, inserting closer Brandon Neely as the Friday night starter against visiting Mississippi State. Neeley started 10 games as a freshman (all weekends), but had pitched exclusively out of the bullpen since the start of the 2023 season.
He was solid through three innings, allowing one run on three hits, but stumbled in the fourth when he allowed two hits, struck out two batters and walked one while striking out just one batter. His final line: five hits and five earned runs in 3 1/3 innings.
Florida rallied from a 6-1 deficit with five runs over the final two innings, winning on a Cade Kurland single to make it 0-2 with two outs. Mississippi State bounced back with a 12-2 win Saturday, but the Gators secured the series with a two-run home run by Jac Caglianone in the bottom of the ninth inning Sunday.
JAC CAGLIANONE IS INEVITABLE.#GoGators // 📺 SEC+ Network pic.twitter.com/ZUpR1cVYBV
– Florida Gators Baseball (@GatorsBB) March 31, 2024
Lamar had his 13-game winning streak snapped last Tuesday with a 6-4 loss at Houston. So what was the Cardinals’ reaction? Sweeping Oklahoma in Norman this weekend – the same Oklahoma team that leads the Big 12 with a 7-2 record in league play.
Lamar scored 31 runs and hit seven homers in the three games, headlined by a 5-for-5, two-homer, six-RBI performance from DH Zak Sinner in Friday’s 13-8 win. Lamar, who last played in the Regional in 2010, is 22-5 overall and 3-0 in the Southland.
Georgia and Tennessee entered the weekend ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the nation for home runs, so fireworks were expected when the two teams met at home run-friendly Lindsey Nelson Stadium , in Knoxville.
The first two games lived up to the hype, with a combined 12 homers hitting as Georgia won 16-2 on Friday and Tennessee rallied for a 16-11 victory on Saturday. On Sunday, however, there was only one home run as the Tennessee pitching staff shut out Georgia’s powerful offense in a 7-0 victory.
Georgia slugger Charlie Condon was held to one hit Friday and no hits Sunday, but he was 5-for-6 with two homers and three RBIs Saturday. He still leads the country in average (.505) and home runs (19).
and finally
• TCU returns to the Big 12. The Horned Frogs improved to 5-7 in league play with a three-game sweep of Houston in Fort Worth.
• Washington State senior right-hander Grant Taylor pitched a complete-game one-hitter Thursday against rival Washington. Taylor allowed a two-out single in the first inning, then retired 25 straight times (including 17 strikeouts) to close out a 4-0 victory.
• Grand Canyon freshman Connor Mattison dominated Taylor’s performance Friday night, tossing a no-hitter in the Lopes’ 4-0 win over Sacramento State.
• UCLA outfielder Payton Brennan was 7-for-7 in the Bruins’ 13-12 overtime win over UCSB on Tuesday. He increased his batting average from .193 to .342 in a single game.
WALK-OFF FINAL: UCLA 13, UCSB 12
Payton Brennan caps a seven-hit night with a single to cap a marathon midweek battle with the Gauchos!#GoBruins pic.twitter.com/bqZ1AoKeYv
-UCLA Baseball (@UCLABaseball) March 27, 2024
• Louisiana has won 11 straight after sweeping a series at Texas State over the weekend. The Ragin’ Cajuns are 20-8 overall and sit in first place in the Sun Belt with an 8-1 record.
• Clemson stayed hot, winning two of three from Miami in Coral Gables. The Tigers had a very good offense against the Hurricanes with a total of five points in three games.
• UC Irvine improved to 8-1 in the Big West and is two games ahead of Cal State Northridge and Cal Poly. The Anteaters are 22-3 overall.
• Nebraska looks like the team to beat early in the Big Ten race. The Cornhuskers improved to 20-5 overall and 3-0 in league play with a sweep of Northwestern. Nebraska faces Creighton, which is 20-4 after sweeping Charleston Southern on the road, Tuesday at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha.
(Photo by Parks Harber, courtesy of UNC Athletics)