Can the Huskies keep it rolling against the Wildcats?
When:
Friday, April 26, 6:05 p.m. ET
Saturday, April 27, 2:05 p.m. ET
Sunday, April 28, 1:05 p.m. ET
Where: Capital One Ballpark, Tysons, Virginia
Radio: Mixlr
TV:
Friday: FloSports
Saturday: FloSports
Sunday: FloSports
Projected Starters
Friday: RHP Ian Cooke (2-1, 4.93 ERA) vs. RHP Jake Francis (3-3, 3.38 ERA)
Saturday: LHP Garrett Coe (6-5, 4.76 ERA) vs. RHP Luke McCullough (4-2, 6.39 ERA)
Sunday: RHP Stephen Quigley (1-3, 4.33 ERA) vs. RHP Devin Rivera (1-6, 5.98 ERA)
Series History
Villanova will pass Rutgers this weekend and become the 12th-longest series in UConn baseball history, as the 70th matchup between the two schools is on Friday. The Huskies are 43-26 all-time against the Wildcats since the first game in 1947, though that was the only battle before 1990. Many of those defeats came in the 20th century, as UConn has won 16 of 18 since 2010, including 10 straight at one point, and the last weekend series loss was in 2004.
What to Watch For
Villanova has been down on its luck for the better part of two decades. RPI history goes back to 1999 on The Baseball Cube and aside from 2020, when the season was canceled before RPI became viable, and 2021, in which the Wildcats played more Big East than non-conference games, the program has had two RPI top-100 finishes (1999 and 2004), with 11 sub-200 finishes, including all but one full season since 2013.
This has created a world in which any loss to Villanova would be an RPI killer, but not so much this year. The Wildcats have beaten last year’s win total with 14 regular season games remaining and have a chance to make the Big East Tournament for the first time since 2008.
Despite the progress the Wildcats have made, they’re still a step down from being a program that can be a contender for conference championships and be anything but a disruptor. They have a bottom-50 non-conference strength of schedule and have played just four Quad 1 games, but come in with a series win over Creighton.
Despite this, Villanova hasn’t been doing it with offense, as it slashes .246/.368/.386. Each of these marks are bottom-100, including a bottom-25 batting average. Scott Shaw (.294/.419/.587) is the headliner offensively and is one of two qualified hitters with an OPS above .800. He’s joined by Jack O’Reilly (.283/.360/.488) and Dylan Dennis (.323/.423/.430), the latter of which missed a month but is now back, but the lineup isn’t deep enough. Three of the seven qualifiers in the lineup are below .700 in OPS and a fourth is at .705.
The starting pitching hasn’t been terribly strong, either, but it’s been enough to win some games.
Jake Francis is the Friday probable pitcher and has stepped into the rotation after being a reliever, as he’s making his sixth start. The freshman has just been getting stretched out, as he hadn’t completed four innings over his first 10 appearances, but in his last three outings, he’s averaged nearly five innings per start and pitched six frames against Seton Hall two weeks ago, allowing just one run. Devin Rivera (5.98 ERA) and Luke McCullough (6.39 ERA) are expected to pitch the rest of the weekend and have struggled to prevent runs and get deep into games, averaging less than five innings per start.
Out of the bullpen, the best pitchers have been one-inning relievers in Stephen Turazi, Alec Sachais and Ryan Mintz, though each of them has a WHIP above 1.30 and work around plenty of traffic. As a team, Villanova has a 1.63 WHIP, which is No. 160 out of 305 Division I teams. If the Huskies can get traffic on the bases, they should be able to score runs in bunches on the Wildcats.