The No. 17 North Carolina baseball team fell to the No. 5 Louisville 6-0 at Boshamer Stadium on Friday. The Tar Heels (29-16, 9-13 ACC) were unable to string together hits against the Cardinals (37-9, 15-9 ACC) and lost the first game of an important three-game set against an ACC foe.
What happened?
North Carolina could not get anything going against do-it-all sophomore Brendan McKay. On the mound, McKay allowed three hits over seven innings and struck out nine.
He also made an impact at the plate. Pitchers are notoriously bad hitters and rarely see the plate in college, but McKay is unique in that he hits and hits well. Against North Carolina on Friday, he batted fourth in the order and got two hits, an RBI and scored a run.
Led by McKay, the Cardinal offense tallied 10 hits and six runs. Much of that offense came in the later innings against Tar Heel relievers Hunter Williams and Spencer Trayner. Williams was credited with two earned runs in just a third of an inning of work and got pulled in the ninth without recording an out.
Who stood out?
UNC pitcher Zac Gallen turned in another solid performance on the mound. He threw 7.2 innings, allowed two earned runs, struck out six and walked just one. He was credited with the loss — his fifth of the season — but the junior allowed only six hits, and even a few of those were soft infield singles helped by unlucky bounces and a slow, wet infield.
“I felt like I had good stuff. Having that week off helped,” Gallen said. “But that’s just the way the game goes sometimes. You’ve got to him them where they ain’t. And they did that, they did a good job. We will bounce back tomorrow.”
Gallen had control of all four of his pitches tonight, attacking hitters with a fastball that sits in the low 90s. He controlled that pitch well and induced lots of soft contact. In the end, he threw strikes and got outs but did not get the run support he needed to win the game.
