UNC overcomes pitching challenges to defeat VCU

The bullpen was supposed to be the strength of the No. 16 North Carolina baseball team.

After the first weekend of play, it certainly seemed like that was the case. But of late, and especially after UNC's (8-3) narrow 6-5 defeat of VCU (3-6) Wednesday night, that has been anything but the case.

After Brett Daniels' brief two-inning start, Coach Mike Fox looked to his bullpen to finish out the game.

Seven pitchers, seven walks and seven innings later, they did that — barely.

"Our pitching’s gotta get better," Fox said after the game. "When Reilly Hovis goes out, we’ve gotta have some other guys step up."

With Hovis, who's arguably the team's best relief pitcher, dealing with a right forearm strain, Fox and pitching coach Scott Forbes looked in several different directions Wednesday night for some help. 

And while several pitchers lived up to the task early in the game, the Tar Heels were forced to use six different pitchers to get the final six outs of the game. 

After sophomore A.J. Bogucki forced a groundout, he walked a batter and was pulled for fellow sophomore Zach Rice. Rice managed to pick off a runner before he walked a batter of his own and was pulled for redshirt junior Chris McCue. 

Four straight balls out of the hand of McCue, and he was out of the game before he could find an out. Former weekend starter Trent Thornton had to come in to get the final out of the eighth inning. 

But Thornton ran into some trouble of his own in the final inning when he blew a 5-2 lead and let VCU climb back in the game, 5-5. 

"I was a little surprised, you don’t see that from Trent Thornton," Fox said. "We got a three-run lead with two outs and nobody on. Making the game run out a little bit harder than it should be."

The burden then fell on the position players to pick up the slack with the bats.

"We got a few runners there at the end and we needed them because usually the bullpen, you know they’re good," said sophomore shortstop Wood Myers, who has started the year with a 10-game hitting streak. "You know that’s baseball, when they can’t get it done we try to pick them up again."

Sophomore outfielder Adam Pate managed to help out on the bases — in the second inning, he drove in a run and then put himself in scoring position by immediately stealing second and third.

"Obviously our bullpen is really, really talented," Pate said. "They didn’t show it tonight, and they haven’t shown it in some games so far this season, but they’re really talented. And we have a lot of depth. 

"So I think once everybody gets their feet wet down there and everybody gets going we’ll be ready to go."

Eight different pitchers got their feet way Wednesday night. And that's probably a good thing, because Friday is Duke and the start of ACC play. 

It's time to go. 

sports@dailytarheel.com