The Unofficial Scorer’s All-Wolfpack Baseball Team 1981-2016 — Catchers

This is the first installment in The Unofficial Scorer’s All-Wolfpack Baseball Team, 1981-2016. We begin at catcher.

To recap how this team was selected, current players and players who finished their eligibility prior to 1981 were not eligible. Players who began their college career before 1981 but finished in 1981, ’82 or ’83 were eligible, with their pre-1981 achievements more or less grandfathered into this. This affected several players from the 1981 and ’82 teams.

At the end of the day, both objective analysis and subjective opinion played a role in determining who made this team. I’ve taken painstaking care in going over this to make sure I’ve included everyone who is worthy. If, however, I left off a deserving name, it was wholly inadvertent. And if your favorite player did not make this team, it was not intended in any way to diminish that player. NC State has had more than its share of great players. I couldn’t list everyone.

Coming Friday: First basemen.

• Catcher — Colt Morton (2001-03)

NC State has been blessed with an abundance of excellent catchers over the years. I considered about a dozen of them, but always came back to Colt Morton. Blessed with a great name, movie-star good looks, upper-deck raw power and surprising athleticism and flexibility for a big man — 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds — Morton was the complete package behind the plate. The son of a personal trainer, his flexibility was especially noteworthy, and no doubt helped him to get into a low crouch, move around fluidly and set a nice low target for his pitchers. While there was a little too much swing-and-miss in his game (174 career K’s, including 76 in 267 plate appearances his freshman season), his power was a game-changer. Most of his home runs were moon shots, the kind of majestic, tape-measure bombs that demoralize opposing pitchers. Along with Brian Wright, he is one of just two NC State players ever to hit 10 or more home runs in three consecutive seasons (12 in 2001, 13 in 2002, and 19 in 2003). He was easily the most irreplaceable player on NC State’s first-ever NCAA Super Regional team, the 2003 squad, which went 45-18 despite playing just 10 games at Doak Field due to stadium renovations. He led the team in homers (19), RBIs (54) and walks (43) while guiding a talented but razor-thin pitching staff that featured three All-Americans. His game-tying bomb vs. Virginia Commonwealth at the 2003 NCAA Wilson Regional not only left Fleming Stadium, but also cleared the parking lot beyond the left-field fence, estimated by a Wilson Tobs official at about 500 feet. Morton belted 35 doubles to go with his 44 career homers, giving him a .520 career slugging percentage. Consistent from start to finish, Morton batted .260, .263 and .265 in his three seasons at NC State, not great averages, no, but he augmented that with 98 walks, giving him a .366 on-base percentage. He averaged a homer every 15.07 at-bats for his career, and upped that ratio to every 12.5 ABs in ’03. Defensively, he was a plus receiver, and fielded his position adroitly, blocking balls in the dirt, and vacuuming up bunts and dribblers in front of the plate. He had a plus arm and cut down the running game. He handled pitchers extremely well and was always — ALWAYS — the man in charge. On fly balls to the outfield with runners on base, Morton’s call to the outfield (“no tag” when the runner wasn’t tagging up, or the number of the base to throw to when the runner was tagging) was audible throughout even the loudest and most hostile stadiums. Most significant, at least to me, Colt Morton was the last NC State catcher to call pitches without prompts from the dugout. There are reasons why college coaches call every pitch, not the least of which is their tendency to be control freaks. The biggest factor, however, is the amount of skull work entailed in calling pitches. A catcher has to know his pitchers. He has to know the opposing hitters. As the game wears on, he has to remember how certain hitters were pitched, the exact pitch sequences, in previous at-bats. He has to understand game situations — the ball-strike count, the number of outs, runners on base and which bases, and whether those runners are a threat to steal or hit-and-run. And he usually has to boil all that down in a split second, pitch after pitch, before signaling the next offering from his pitcher. It’s not easy and it takes tremendous effort to learn. Morton was as smart behind the plate as he was physically gifted. His baseball IQ and understanding of game situations were unsurpassed. And all of that separated Colt Morton from the rest of a crowded field of NC State catchers.

• Second Team — Greg Almond (1992-93)

Greg Almond was NC State’s best defensive catcher of the last 36 years, and the Wolfpack, as mentioned previously, has had more than its share of great backstops. Catcher’s ERA is largely discounted by statheads. At some point, though, you have to believe the data and assume it’s not just a coincidence or luck. In the three years before Greg Almond arrived at NC State (1989-91), the staff ERAs were 4.54, 4.93 and 4.18. During Almond’s two seasons, that dropped precipitously, to 2.98 and 3.48. In the three years after he left, the staff ERA ballooned to 5.01, 5.08 and 6.95. To be fair, Almond wasn’t the only variable in the equation. In particular, the 1992 starting rotation may have been the best in school history, and the ’93 rotation wasn’t far behind. Still, behind every great pitching staff is a great catcher, one who can give a pat on the back or a kick in the ass as needed, who can be trusted to block that 0-2 breaking ball in the dirt, cut down the running game, and quickly field balls dribbled in front of home plate. That was Greg Almond. Wild pitches and passed balls both dropped by about half during his two years, and while the rules of baseball charge wild pitches to the pitcher, don’t think for a second that the catcher isn’t a huge factor. It was a rare sight, indeed, to see Almond chasing an errant pitch to the backstop. The running game slowed with Almond in the lineup, with the number of successful steals and total stolen-base attempts dropping by about 25 percent. And rather than risk running into outs, opponents tended to play station-to-station with Almond behind the plate. And if you didn’t believe the numbers, there was always the eye test. Almond was like a hockey goalie. Balls in the dirt got knocked down and smothered. Short-hop throws from the outfield or relayed from infielders never seemed to handcuff him. He set up a nice, low target and framed pitches well. Pitchers loved working with him. A good hitter overshadowed by several great hitting teammates and one extra-famous in-conference rival, Almond batted .251 with eight homers and 38 RBIs as a junior for the Wolfpack’s 1992 ACC championship team. A year later, he hit .315 with five homers and 31 RBIs for NC State’s 49-game winner, which was the school record for W’s until 2013. He posted a .281 career average with a .377 OBP and a .461 slugging percentage. Surrounded by the likes of Pat Clougherty, Tim Tracey, Vinny Hughes, Andy Barkett and Robbie Bark, standout hitters one and all, Almond’s offense was overlooked, even taken for granted. Then there was the presence of Georgia Tech’s Jason Varitek, an all-world catcher and future big league star who overshadowed everyone in college baseball those years. Varitek was genuinely great, especially with a bat in his hands. Behind the plate, however, Almond was better. In fact, Almond was easily the ACC’s best defensive catcher in both 1992 and ’93, no contest, and NC State’s best defensive catcher since 1981, hands down.

The Unofficial Scorer’s All-Wolfpack Baseball Team 1981-2016

About four years ago, I was talking with a major league scout — a cross checker for an American League East team, I believe — who asked who my favorite NC State player of all time was. He then started asking me about the best NC State players I’d seen at each position on the diamond. Our conversation was interrupted when other scouts arrived and changed the subject, but that conversation stuck with me and got me to thinking about which players I would choose for my own personal all-time NC State all-star team.

Not to boast, but no one is more qualified to choose such a team. I started working NC State baseball games in 1981 and have worked and/or covered Wolfpack baseball pretty much continuously ever since, serving as radio broadcaster, reporter, public address announcer, official scorer, and baseball SID. While I don’t consider myself an historian, NC State baseball was my primary occupation for about three decades, and I still follow the program closely. I feel quite safe in saying that I’ve seen more Wolfpack baseball games — somewhere just south of 2,000 and counting — than anyone alive, and I dare say I know more NC State baseball history than anyone, alive or dead. I know where the bodies are buried.

Four years after my conversation with that AL cross checker, I sat down at the computer and began to put this thing together, figuring that if nothing else it would be a pleasant way to pass some time during a long, boring offseason. It was hard work at times, but it also was a blast. For about six weeks, it was all I did. By summer’s end, to give myself some perspective and to let my thoughts percolate on low heat for a bit, I had to force myself away from it for a few months before returning to it in November. The time away helped. Once I got back to it the remaining entries came together quickly.

A huge thanks to Cavan Fosnes for allowing me to plunder and pillage the records in the NC State Athletics Communications office, which gave me some substance, numbers and verifiable detail to fill in the gaps that exist in my memory. In particular, going through the old box scores and scorebooks helped me determine who played which positions, especially in the outfield. I’m doing left, center and right fields as separate positions, and some of those distinctions had grown a little fuzzy over the years.

My choices here are based on both objective analysis and subjective opinion. I tried to be completely objective at all times, but I had to break a few ties and personal opinion came into play a time or two. I had no axes to grind with any individual player or players. I rooted hard for every guy who ever wore that uniform. Still do. I have my favorites but I also have well-informed reasons why they’re my favorites. I saw all of them play. Most of them, I saw every game of their college career. You can disagree with my choices and you won’t necessarily be wrong, but please understand that I’ve taken painstaking care to make sure I considered everyone who is worthy. With that said, it’s certainly possible that someone fell through the cracks. If I left off a deserving name, it was wholly inadvertent.

Some choices were easy, others quite difficult. I used a few loosely applied criteria to sort out some of the tougher calls, but there were no hard rules or tiebreakers. I didn’t rule out anyone who played just one year at NC State, a group that includes such standouts as Greg Briley, Tony Ellison, Jamie Wolkosky, Mark Wells and Adam Everett. Longevity and peak performance were the two factors I most frequently had to weigh against one another. Each case was different, and some of these choices were subjective. It’s my blog, after all.

All-America and All-ACC honors definitely played a role, but they were not be-all, end-all either. I reserved the right to use those honors as I saw fit. If a player was All-ACC twice, for instance, that didn’t necessarily break a tie with another player who was All-ACC just once, or even never. Ditto for making an All-America team. Two of NC State’s greatest players, Brian Bark and Jake Weber, never made All-America, not once between them, which says more about the people naming All-America teams than it does about Bark or Weber. I took extra care to remember the seven NC State players who were chosen to the ACC’s 50th Anniversary Team. Six of them were eligible for this team, including Bark and Weber.

This All-NC State team includes players who played between the years 1981 and 2016. There’s no question that Mike Caldwell, Chris Cammack and Steve Martin from the 1968 College World Series team would be included on just about any list of the greatest NC State baseball players. I fully acknowledge that, but other than a few games I attended when I was in high school, I never saw them play. This is about players who were active while I was working the games. Current players were not eligible. Those stories are still being written. Players who began their college career prior to 1981 but finished in 1981 or later were eligible. I saw them for at least one year, and what I know of their pre-1981 exploits were considered and grandfathered in. This affected only a few players from the 1981 and ’82 teams.

Some surprises popped up the deeper I delved into this. Some players had far better careers than I remembered, while others weren’t really as good. Some I remembered as being good but I was surprised at just how great they were. I was surprised at how little depth there was at some positions, such as the two outfield corners. Stunned, in fact, but part of that had to do with coaches moving players around and not settling them into one position. Because of that, several players qualified at utility-DH, more than I’d expected or intended, while left and right field were left a little thin. On the other hand, I was equally taken aback at how deep several other positions were, such as catcher and second base. NC State has had some great catchers and second basemen, and because of that, some players who were more than good enough to make this team at another position wound up in the honorable mention list. So it goes.

First up will be catcher. Stay tuned.

In Search Of Omaha, Redux

Fall baseball practice opens up soon, and for the second year in a row, NC State appears to be a prime candidate for high preseason expectations as we look ahead to 2017.

A year ago, the Wolfpack returned the bulk of a team that came within a few outs of running fourth-ranked TCU out of its own stadium in a regional finale that the Pack ultimately gave away amid a flurry of walks and wild pitches, two misplayed routine ground balls, and one of the most egregious balk calls in NCAA Tournament history.

Flash forward to the fall of 2016 and the Wolfpack returns to campus still licking its wounds from a regional finale that got away on its own home field, a devastating ninth-inning collapse to eventual national champion Coastal Carolina. That’s two heartbreaking regional finals that NC State let get away in as many years. And while it’s foolhardy to think the Wolfpack would have traversed the same path to a national championship that the Chanticleers did, the safe money here says that if you took a poll of the Coastal Carolina coaches and players as to which was their toughest postseason opponent, NC State would be the near-unanimous winner.

NC State was College World Series good in 2016, and the bulk of that team is back, and probably carrying a pretty big chip on its collective shoulder. First baseman Preston Palmeiro (.337 average/.412 on-base percentage/.539 slugging percentage/.951 OPS), catcher Andrew Knizner (.292/.359/.388/.747 OPS) and catcher/designated hitter Chance Shepard (.279/.384/.558/.942 OPS) must be replaced from the everyday lineup. On the mound, Ryan Williamson (7-2, 2.69) is gone from the weekend rotation, and bullpen magician Will Gilbert (5-1, 2.22, 6 saves) will be by far the most difficult of the departed to replace. Those are signifiant losses, but the returning nucleus is deep and dynamic, and there are multiple candidates available to replace most of the dearly departed.

For some historical perspective, the 2017 everyday lineup has a chance to be head coach Elliott Avent’s best since 2012, maybe his best since his extraordinary 2006 squad, which batted .333 as a team, scored 8.5 runs per game with a .976 team OPS, and was the best defensive team I’ve seen in 36 years working college baseball. Avent has been overheard in recent months touting the 2012 team as his best everyday squad, but the 2006 team was better by leaps and bounds. Aside from Trea Turner, who played third base in 2012, shortstop Chris Diaz and right fielder Ryan Mathews, no one on the 2012 team would have started in 2006. And Diaz and Mathews would have to change positions to crack the ’06 lineup.

So what does that mean for 2017? Simply that this year’s Wolfpack could be in that class, based on the returnees from 2016. Shane Shepard (.258/.396/.461/.857 OPS) should move in at first base, with Jack Conley (5-for-6 in limited action) taking over at catcher. Second baseman Stephen Pitarra (.291/.376/.347/.723 OPS), shortstop Joe Dunand (.297/.345/.424/.769 OPS), third baseman Evan Mendoza (.362/.417/.449/.866 OPS), left fielder Brett Kinneman (.296/.405/.526/.931 OPS), center fielder Josh McLain (.300/.359/.465/.824 OPS) and right fielder Brock Deatherage (.317/.395/.482/.877 OPS) all return from a team that batted .303 and scored 6.9 runs per game with an .836 team OPS. Kinneman and Conley are sophomores. The rest are juniors. It’s a talented, versatile and experienced group. As good as 2012? Probably. As good as 2006? Almost certainly not, but damned good by almost any measure you care to take.

The pitching will start with junior lefty Brian Brown (7-3, 3.70), with 14 wins and 167 innings under his belt through his first two college seasons. Joe O’Donnell (3-2, 4.02), assuming he’s recovered from the shoulder injury that sidelined him most of last season, and Cory Wilder (3-4, 4.61) bring a wealth of experience to the starting rotation.

Then there’s Cody Beckman (2-0, 6.05), who came back from injury a year ago and closed the season with a rush. Beckman was especially impressive out of the bullpen in May and June. In particular, he turned in a dominating performance in the regional final vs. Coastal Carolina, recording five vital outs, four of them strikeouts, before rain halted play in the top of the ninth inning with NC State holding a 5-3 lead. The New York Mets drafted Beckman in the 25th round last June but he opted to return to Raleigh. He could move into the rotation in 2017.

Johnny Piedmonte (1-3, 5.56), Austin Staley (3-1, 3.16), Evan Brabrand (1-1, 7.23), Sean Adler (0-1. 6.94) and Tommy DeJuneas (2-3, 6.23, 6 saves) should make for an experienced bullpen nucleus, but one with a history of hiccups. Staley was impressive in a support role most of last season. Piedmonte struggled going through a lineup twice as a starter but flourished as a reliever in May and June. His dominance of Georgia Tech in the ACC Championship was an eye-opener. Brabrand, a former walk-on, has shown steady improvement in his first two seasons with the Wolfpack. Adler, a transfer from Southern Cal, has big upside but struggled with his command.

DeJuneas was a revelation as a freshman in 2015, going 3-3 with a 1.82 ERA and six saves. Blessed with a blistering fastball and plus raw stuff overall, he entered 2016 as a potential All-American but never really got untracked. His 6.37 ERA fails to do justice to just how badly his season ended. Command has been DeJuneas’s downfall. He’s worked 69 1/3 innings in two seasons, striking out 84 but walking 44. At his best, he’s nearly unhittable. At less than his best, he can be a mess. After the unceremonious end to his 2016 campaign, DeJuneas headed to Harwich of the Cape Cod League, where he saw little game action — 12 appearances, 15 1/3 innings — but no doubt got plenty of bullpen work with respected Harwich pitching coach Steve Gruenberg. DeJuneas has 12 career saves, tied for fourth most in school history. He has as much upside as just about any pitcher in the country. It’s unfair to say he’s the key to success in 2017 because that’s just not the case. If he could start to fulfill some of that promise, however, that would make a huge difference.

With that kind of experience back, as erratic as some of the pitching might be, Avent is in the enviable position of bringing his recruiting class along at its own speed without having to rely on any newcomers who aren’t ready for prime time. Several of this year’s recruits, however, could well play significant roles in 2017.

In particular, Brad Debo, from Durham and Orange High School, is an elite-level hitter and catcher, a top-100 national recruit who will push Conley for time behind the plate. Righthander Dalton Feeney, another top-100-caliber recruit, brings some health concerns, with whispers of a partially torn UCL following him, but if healthy Feeney is the Wolfpack’s best pitching prospect since Carlos Rodon arrived in the fall of 2011. Nolan Clenney, a two-way performer who helped lead Brunswick Community College to the 2016 NJCAA World Series, has the potential to be at least a midweek starter, not a high-end prospect but a strike-thrower capable of eating innings.

Several other newcomers could earn roles of varying importance in 2017, but again, Avent will have the luxury of not depending on any freshmen to carry the team.

So what does it all mean for 2017? At first glance, this team probably has the best chance of reaching the College World Series of any Wolfpack team since the 2013 squad went to Omaha. This team’s everyday lineup is light years better than the 2013 team, which struggled to score runs much of the season and finished with a team OPS of just .742. The 2013 team made up for a lack of pop by stealing a school-record 110 bases, but overall that club’s offense was Turner, Jake Fincher and a carload of unheralded seniors who provided guile, guts and tremendous leadership, but not much in the way of actual offense.

On the mound, this year’s team has no Carlos Rodon, but it should have a deeper rotation than the 2013 club, which struggled when Rodon wasn’t on the hill. The remainder of the 2013 rotation — Ethan Ogburn, Brad Stone and Logan Jernigan — averaged 3 2/3 innings per start, putting immense pressure on a bullpen that was up to each and every challenge.

Grant Sasser (3-0, 1.03, 8 saves, 33 appearances, 43.2 IP), Chris Overman (1-1, 0.33, 6 saves, 21 appearances, 27.1 IP) and Josh Easley (7-2, 1.38, 25 appearances, 45.2 IP) were the bellwethers of what was arguably the best bullpen in the country and almost certainly the best bullpen in NC State history. As much as anyone on the team, the troika of Sasser, Overman and Easley was responsible for NC State’s 2013 march to Omaha.

So the question that must be asked is: Does a solid and deep rotation, an erratic but promising bullpen, and a talented and dynamic everyday lineup add up to a College World Series berth? Clearly, that remains to be seen. There’s a lot of work to do and a lot of games to play between now and then. All kinds of things can happen. Luck and injuries will play a role.

What we do know, however, is that, based on all available evidence, this team has a chance to be special, and in late August that’s the best you can ask for, a chance.

And Down The Stretch They Come

In mid-April, the Atlantic Coast Conference baseball race was clearly defined, with four teams — Louisville, Miami, Florida State and NC State — separated from the rest of the field, followed by a nine-team muddle fighting for a spot in the top 10 and a berth in the conference tournament.

A month later, as we head into the final weekend of the regular season, little has changed. Four teams are firmly established at the top of the league standings, followed at a distance by eight teams muddling along, all within two games of one another. Six of the eight will be in the top 10 at the end of play Saturday and thus headed to Durham for the ACC Tournament.

Two things have changed in the last month, however. First, Pittsburgh is pretty much DOA at this point. For the Panthers to make the top 10, they’ll need to sweep Duke this weekend and hope like crazy that Boston College, Notre Dame and either North Carolina or Georgia Tech all lose big. Not likely to happen, meaning Pitt is very unlikely to make an appearance at Durham Bulls Athletic Park next Tuesday.

The other thing that’s changed is that NC State and Virginia have traded places. The red-hot defending national champion Cavaliers — winners of eight of their last 10 league games — have jumped into the top four, while the Wolfpack has fallen into the eight-team muddle by losing eight of its last 10 ACC games.

What happened? Well, UVa’s veterans started playing like veterans, and its talented youngsters finally grew up. Weekend starters Connor Jones (10-1, 1.96) and Adam Hasely (7-3, 1.97) are pitching like All-Americans. Matt Thaiss (.367/.468/.561), Ernie Clement (.345/.382/.408), Pavin Smith (.335/.429/.511), Daniel Pinero (.311/.423/.424) and Nate Eikhoff (.309/.340/.479) have come together to form the nucleus of a very strong and consistent everyday lineup. No one is predicting Virginia will win the national championship — of course, no one did a year ago either — but this young and talented team will surprise no one if it makes a deep run in the postseason.

In Raleigh, meanwhile, key injuries to a painfully thin pitching staff and an everyday lineup facing a steady diet of top-shelf pitching, especially lefthanded pitching, brought the high-flying Wolfpack back to earth. Friday starter Joe O’Donnell has been out eight weeks now and probably isn’t coming back. Bullpen ace Will Gilbert missed three weeks with tightness in his left bicep, and didn’t look anything like his old self in two appearances since returning. On top of that, Sunday starter Ryan Williamson came out of the finale of the Clemson series two weeks ago with forearm tightness, took his regular turn this past Sunday at Louisville, and looked like a pitcher with forearm tightness. He faced eight batters, got three outs, allowed four runs on three hits, walked two and didn’t come close to a strikeout.

NC State heads into the final weekend of the season at home but going in the wrong direction and facing a dangerous and somewhat desperate North Carolina team that has lost five of its last seven conference series, 14 of its last 21 conference games, and 16 of its last 29 games overall. After a blistering 19-3 start that included impressive series wins at UCLA and at home against Oklahoma State, the Tar Heels have watched their season swirl down the drain hole much the way they did a year ago. North Carolina enters the series in Raleigh in ninth place in the overall standings thanks to a tiebreaker, but in a virtual four-way tie with Duke, Notre Dame and Boston College.

NC State, two games ahead of the four ninth-place teams with three to play, is almost a lock to get to Durham — almost — but needs at least one win this weekend, maybe two, to avoid Tuesday’s play-in round. The Wolfpack catches several breaks in the schedule. Four of the teams chasing NC State are playing one another, meaning two of them will lose. Wake Forest, just a game behind the Pack but losers in the three-game series in Raleigh last month, and thus the tiebreaker, hosts Louisville, maybe the best team in the country. Wake probably needs to win the series and maybe sweep it to pass NC State. Good luck with that.

For NC State, it comes down to this: Win just one game in the series with UNC, and Wake Forest will have to sweep Louisville in order to pass the Wolfpack. Win just one game in the series with UNC, and whoever wins the Georgia Tech-Boston College series will need to sweep that series in order to pass NC State. Win just one game in the series with UNC, and the Wolfpack will finish ahead of Duke, North Carolina, Notre Dame and Boston College no matter what those teams do.

Just one win.

Sounds so easy, but based on recent history, maybe not so much. The Wolfpack has lost its last four ACC games and five of its last six. Clemson won two of three from the Pack two weeks ago and Louisville easily swept NC State a week ago in Kentucky. The Wolfpack returns home this week and North Carolina is a far cry offensively from Clemson or Louisville. On the other hand, the Tar Heels can pitch, ranking second in the conference with a 3.02 staff ERA, led by righthander Zac Gallen (5-5, 2.35) and lefthander J.B. Bukauskis (6-2, 2.86).

At this point, the Wolfpack’s weekend rotation is less than a sure thing, with lefty Brian Brown (7-2, 2.83) and righthander Cory Wilder (3-3, 4.79) certain to start, and Williamson (7-2, 2.86) still a likely starter despite events of the last two weeks. What order they pitch and how much Williamson has in the tank, all that remains to be seen.

We took a close look at NC State’s recent offensive problems a week ago and speculated that they might find little to cure what ails them in Louisville. And so it went. Aside from Evan Mendoza (more on him in a moment), the Wolfpack had a long weekend at the plate, hitting .173 and scoring three runs in the three games. Mendoza went 5-for-12, drove in two of the three runs, and extended his hitting streak to a now-serious 23 games. Stephen Pitarra was 3-for-12 and Andrew Knizner 2-for-10. The other six regulars in each hit less than .200. Chance Shepard, Brett Kinneman and Josh McLain combined to go 1-for-29.

Before you get too alarmed at all that, understand what the Wolfpack was facing in the Cardinals. Friday starter Brendan McKay (10-2, 2.02) will be a high first-round pick in the 2017 MLB draft, maybe one of the top three players taken. Sunday starter Kyle Funkhouser (7-3, 4.24) was a first-round pick a year ago, 32nd overall to the Dodgers, and is suddenly pitching like a first-rounder again after a rocky start. Saturday starter Drew Harrington (10-1, 1.80) isn’t the top prospect that McKay and Funkhouser are, but he is arguably their best, one of the most accomplished and polished pitchers in the college ranks. Harrington carves up lineups with an upper-80s fastball and a slider from hell, and he definitely carved up the Wolfpack. The Louisville rotation is so stacked that Kade McClure has to pitch midweek games despite a perfect 10-0 record and a 2.45 ERA. When the starters tire in the late innings, closer Zack Burdi (1-2, 2.25) comes in throwing 99-102 mph with a slider that tops out around 90. He even gets his fastball to sink, which should be illegal. He throws both pitches for strikes, as evidenced by 42 K’s and seven walks in 24 innings. Burdi will be a first-round pick next month and probably will be pitching in the big leagues by the end of August.

You get the picture. What happened to NC State’s hitters last weekend has happened to others and could happen to anyone. How does facing a staff like that prepare a team for North Carolina? We’ll find out this weekend. UNC’s pitching isn’t as good or as deep as Louisville’s, but it’s very good nonetheless.

Just one win.

One win and the Wolfpack will probably finish sixth overall and avoid the play-in round. Maybe easier said than done.

• The Curious Case Of Evan Mendoza: There is a great old baseball movie called "Damn Yankees," about a middle-aged Washington Senators fan named Joe Boyd who makes a deal with the devil and becomes young Joe Hardy from Hannibal, Missouri. Joe Hardy, slugger extraordinaire, leads the Senators past the Yankees to the American League pennant.

No one is suggesting that Evan Mendoza sold his soul to the devil, but his emergence out of nowhere is eerily similar to Joe Hardy’s. Who is this guy? Mendoza came to Raleigh a year ago as a heralded two-way player from Sarasota (Fla.) High School, but mostly as a pitcher. In fall practice his freshman year, he may have been the best pitcher on the staff, baffling hitters with an assortment of quality pitches and above-average command. He also saw time at second and third base but did not figure to get much playing time as a position player, especially considering how good he looked on the mound.

The 2015 season did not go as planned for Mendoza. His first appearance on the mound, a start against Davidson at Doak Field, went well enough, five innings, four hits, one run, one win. His second, a start at Coastal Carolina a week later, was an unmitigated disaster — six batters faced, two hits, three walks, five runs, one out, and Mendoza’s first and, at this point, last college loss.

Mendoza made one start as a position player in 2015, April 26 in the first game of a home doubleheader against Virginia, and got three at-bats. He made the least of them, striking out out twice and flying out. Bubby Riley pinch-hit for him in the ninth and hit a walk-off solo home run.

Fast forward a year and Evan Mendoza is not only NC State’s best and most consistent player (.383/.446/.456 with 23-game hitting streak intact), but in most any other ACC season he’d be a lock for first-team all-conference. Unfortunately for Mendoza, Wake Forest third baseman Will Craig is well on his way to winning back-to-back ACC Player of the Year awards. Talk about bad timing.

Mendoza not only went 5-for-12 against Louisville’s big-league rotation last weekend, he’s hitting .513 (20-for-39) in his last 11 games, and .442 (34-for-77) for the duration of the hitting streak, which is now three games from matching Greg Briley’s school-record 26-game streak in 1986.

Mendoza’s hitting streak began April 2 at Virginia and ended a four-game hitless streak. This is not one of those empty hitting streaks marked with lots of one-hit games and games where the only hit came in the late innings after the issue was settled. Mendoza has gone past the sixth inning without a hit just four times during the 23-game streak — April 6 at Charlotte, April 11 vs. Wake Forest, April 29 vs. Duke, and May 8 vs. Clemson. Ten of the 23 games are multiple-hit games, including eight of the last 11.

He’s also hit all over the lineup during the streak, and hit well everywhere: three games hitting second (.545), two games hitting third (.375), one game hitting fourth (1.000), three games hitting fifth (.500), four games hitting eighth (.313) and 10 games hitting ninth (.455).

In addition to his spectacular hitting, Mendoza has been a revelation at third base, showing quick and sure hands to make numerous standout plays.

To accomplish all of that after essentially sitting on his duff and watching all of last year, well, he’s not Joe Hardy and he’s not gonna make first-team all-conference, but there are few if any stories in college baseball this year better than Evan Mendoza.

Trying To Recapture That Missing Mojo

The numbers say NC State’s offense is rolling. The Wolfpack scored 16 and 26 runs in its last two Atlantic Coast Conference series, against Duke at Doak Field and at Clemson a week ago. Forty-two runs in six ACC games, that’s an even seven runs per game.

The Pack batted .295 in those six games, with a .367 on-base percentage and a .395 slugging percentage. Dating back even further, to the final game of the Georgia Tech series on April 17, NC State is hitting .309 as a team with a .403 on-base percentage and a .464 slugging percentage in 11 games, averaging 8.36 runs per game. That’s tearing the cover off the ball, right?

Maybe not.

There’s an old saying that there are lies, damned lies and statistics, and that appears to be the case with NC State’s recent offensive stats. Mixed in those 11 games are three blowouts victories — 25-1 over N.C. A&T on April 24, 12-2 over Duke on April 30, and 20-9 over Clemson on May 7. That’s 57 runs and 54 hits, 13 of them for extra bases, in three games, and those three blowouts skew the Wolfpack’s recent offensive numbers quite a bit. 

The reality is that after riding an explosive offense for most of April, NC State has fallen into a slump in May. Take those three blowouts out of the picture and you have an entirely different story, an eight-game stretch — yes, a tiny sample size but not a meaningless one — in which the Wolfpack batted .253 with a .348 on-base percentage and a .411 slugging percentage. The Pack scored 4.38 runs per game in the eight games, losing five of them and being outscored 49-35. The last two weekends, NC State scored 10 runs in the four games it did not win by rout, which computes to 2.5 runs per game.

The lineup that was so solid one through nine is suddenly leaking oil from several spots in the order. Evan Mendoza (.481/.548/.593 in the eight games in question) is hitting at a Hall-of-Fame clip, while Brock Deatherage (.345/.406/.552) and Preston Palmeiro (.281/.343/.531) aren’t far behind. Chance Shepard (.250/.438/.583) and Brett Kinneman (.250/.382/.607) have been quite productive despite misleading .250 batting averages. Joe Dunand is hitting .258 with a .324 on-base percentage, but is slugging a puny .290.

And then it gets ugly. Josh McLain, who suffered a broken metatarsal in his left hand when struck by a pitch in the finale of the Georgia Tech series, is hitting .188 since then, with a .235 on-base percentage and a .290 slugging percentage. Playing with the broken bone won’t cause further injury but McLain is playing with pain and no doubt it’s affected his swing. He was the team’s hottest hitter by a wide margin heading into the Georgia Tech series.

Stephen Pitarra, in his first season as a regular and as leadoff hitter, seems to have hit the wall. During the team’s eight-game funk, Pitarra is hitting .156 with a .229 on-base percentage and a .156 slugging percentage.

Then there’s Andrew Knizner, one of the best pure hitters in the ACC the last two years. Knizner is batting .156 (4-for-32) during the eight-game slide, with a .176 OBP and a .156 slugging percentage. Even with more days off behind the plate this season thanks to the improved defensive play of Shepard, Knizner is still logging most of the innings at catcher, which takes a physical toll. Knizner was having a solid season through the Georgia Tech series, but is hitting .186 in the last 11 games. We can only hope this is not a late-onset of junioritis, a mysterious disorder that strikes draft-eligible players as the June draft approaches.

With so much on the line the next few weeks and with the pitching staff dinged up — more on that in a moment — this was an inopportune time for half the Wolfpack lineup to go into a collective slump. And this weekend may not offer many cures for what ails them. Louisville is one of the nation’s deepest and most talented teams. The sixth-ranked Cardinals lead the ACC in ERA at 2.83, with starters Brendan McKay (9-2, 2.22) and Drew Harrington (9-1, 1.73) ranking among the league’s best. Louisville’s Sunday starter, senior Kyle Funkhouser (6-3, 4.54), is no slouch either. Funkhouser was a first-round draft choice a year ago (35th overall by the Dodgers) but did not sign. He got off to a slow start to 2016 but has pitched progressively better each start for the last month. Closer Zack Burdi (1-2, 2.49, 7 saves) throws 99 mph with a good slider.

• Pitching Woes Continue: While the Wolfpack offense has jumped the rails the last month, the pitching staff continues to feel the longterm effect of two key injuries. 

Righthander Joe O’Donnell, at one time NC State’s Friday starter, has now been out of action seven weeks and counting since exiting in the first inning of the Wolfpack’s 8-5 loss March 25 at Florida State. Heading into that game, O’Donnell was 3-1 with a 2.64 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 29 2/3 innings.

Three weeks later, lefthanded reliever Will Gilbert came out of the middle game of the Georgia Tech series, on April 16 to be precise, and was out until the ninth inning of the Clemson series finale last weekend. He faced one Tiger batter and gave up the game-winning hit, but one hitter is not a good barometer of how far Gilbert is from the all-star form he exhibited before the injury. NC State needs Gilbert in the worst way — he was 1-0 with two saves and a 0.82 ERA in his last five appearances before his injury and is 3-0, 2.31 with four saves in 18 appearances overall — but even assuming he’s healthy, Gilbert has some rust to knock off following a three-week absence.

NC State has allowed 46 earned runs in 78 1/3 innings in its last three ACC series, a 5.29 ERA, but that includes three games against a hapless Duke offense that ranks next-to-last in the ACC in batting and dead last in runs scored per game and on-base percentage. Take those three games out of the equation and the Wolfpack’s ERA in series vs. Georgia Tech and Clemson is an alarming 7.48.

Not all of that is due to the absence of O’Donnell and Gilbert, but this is not a deep staff. There is, in fact, little margin for error, and losing those two is probably more error than the Wolfpack needs, especially at this point in the season.

There is some good news on the pitching front, specifically lefty starters Brian Brown (7-1, 2.48) and Ryan Williamson (7-1, 2.63). Brown has been the Wolfpack’s best starter for two seasons now, a 14-game winner for his career with at least four more starts coming this season. Williamson stepped into the weekend rotation on April 3 at Virginia and except for a blow-up at Georgia Tech he has pitched like an ace, going 3-1 with a 2.84 ERA his last six starts, 3-0, 1.39 not counting the game at Georgia Tech.

Williamson pitched his best game as a collegian and one of the best games by an NC State pitcher in recent memory last Sunday at Clemson, allowing just one unearned run on three hits in 7 2/3 innings. He struck out six, walked one, and generally made the Clemson hitters look like school children.

A cautionary note about Williamson, however. He had to come out of that game at Clemson in the eighth inning with tightness in his left forearm. He’s been cleared to pitch this weekend at Louisville. NC State can only hope he’s okay.

• The Run Support King: There’s nothing a pitcher likes more than run support from his teammates, and lefty Brian Brown has been swimming in run support this season. NC State has scored 113 runs in Brown’s 12 starts, an average of 9.42 runs per game.

The last month, however, the Wolfpack has scored enough runs for Brown to last a lifetime. It all began April 16 at Georgia Tech, a 15-6 rout for the Pack. A week later, Brown was the starting pitcher for NC State’s 25-1 annihilation of North Carolina A&T, and the following Saturday he got the win in the Wolfpack’s 12-2 romp over Duke. Last weekend, NC State blew up Clemson by a 20-9 score. Yes, Brown was the starting pitcher.

In Brown’s last three starts, NC State scored 57 runs, 35 of them while Brown was still in the game. (Two years ago, Carlos Rodon made 14 starts for the Wolfpack, which scored all of 48 runs in those 14 games. Explains a lot, doesn't it?) In Brown’s last four starts, the Pack scored 72 runs, 48 of them while Brown was in the game.

• Mendoza Still Raking: Evan Mendoza not only leads NC State in hitting with a .380 batting average, .041 ahead of runner-up Josh McLain, he is tied for sixth in the ACC in hitting, and also leads the Wolfpack in on-base percentage at .444.

Mendoza rides a 20-game hitting streak into Louisville this weekend, and as the streak has gone on he has hit with more and more authority. Six of the last seven games in the streak were multiple-hit games. Over his last 10 games, Mendoza is hitting .531 (17-for-32) with two home runs, 11 runs scored and nine RBIs. For the 20-game streak as a whole, Mendoza is batting .446 (29-for-65) with a double, two home runs, 16 runs scored and 14 driven in.

The NC State record for consecutive games with at least one hit is 26, set by Greg Briley back in 1986. Tom Sergio came within a game of matching that in 1995. Since then, three players — Brian Wright in 1999, Ryan Mathews in 2012 and Logan Ratledge a year ago — posted hitting streaks of 21 games.

• Snakebite: A quick note here on head coach Elliott Avent’s absence from the Louisville trip due to a copperhead bite. Those of us who live in Wake County know that copperheads are ubiquitous, especially in the county’s northern and northwestern suburbs. Their bite can be especially nasty. No, they’re not rattlesnakes and death from copperhead bite is extremely rare, but never underestimate the misery a copperhead can inflict. Pit vipers such as copperheads are especially dangerous this time of year when they’re fresh out of hibernation and their venom is strong and in plentiful supply.

The fact that Avent offered little resistance to his doctors when they told him not to travel this weekend speaks volumes about the pain he must be in and how serious this particular snakebite is. Avent is a Type A workaholic. To him the No. 1 responsibility in his job description is coaching games. The only games he ever missed were because of a suspension, the result of one of college baseball’s most spectacular ejections ever, and even though not allowed to coach the following weekend, he still made the trip to Charlottesville and managed to drive the press box crazy with constant phone calls for score updates.

Five years ago, he was in an auto accident on Oberlin Road in Raleigh and had to spend the night in the hospital with a concussion. Told to stay home and get plenty of bedrest for several days, Avent instead made the trip to UNC Wilmington two nights later, despite being in a thick mental fog most of the night. He even managed to get ejected that night without knowing it. Three batters into the next half-inning, the home-plate umpire stopped the game and had the surprised and wobbly Avent gently escorted to the team bus. He also coached a series a few years ago despite being nearly doubled over in pain from kidney stones.

For that same man to willingly miss one of the most crucial series of his career — this is not to say he was happy about it because he most certainly was not — says all you need to know about just how serious Avent’s snakebite is.

So make all the jokes you want about Avent and the Wolfpack being snakebit. Next time you go walking in tall grass or near a woodpile or along a city greenway, keep your eyes open. It could happen to you.

Staring Down Another Former Nemesis

NC State’s recent reversals against past tormentors gets another test this weekend when the Wolfpack plays a three-game Atlantic Coast Conference series at Clemson.

Newcomers to this rivalry might look at the schedule, see a series with Clemson and think this is a gimme for the Pack, which has, after all, won four of the last five regular-season series vs. the Tigers. NC State has even won its last two series at Clemson, which is among Wolfpack head coach Elliott Avent’s favorite places to visit and least favorite places to play.

Avent loves to visit. He fancies small, sleepy, Southern college towns, and Clemson could easily pass for a Southeastern Conference venue along the lines of Athens, Auburn, Oxford, Starkville and Baton Rouge. As much as Avent likes to visit Clemson and as much success as his teams have had against the Tigers the last five seasons, however, you can bet the mortgage he still has nightmares of past visits to Death Valley, which he will assure you is aptly named.

NC State has won its last two series in Death Valley and four of its last five games there. Prior to that, though, the Tigers absolutely owned the Wolfpack in the Upstate. Clemson officials no doubt sent out a police escort to make sure the NC State team bus made it to town safely for the start of the series each year. From the last game of the 2002 series at Clemson through the first game of the 2012 series there, the Tigers defeated the Wolfpack 12 times in 13 meetings at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. Clemson swept the Pack in 2004, 2006 and 2010, and won two of three in 2008. Understand that NC State was pretty good in 2004, and very good in 2006, 2008 and 2010, and still got boat-raced in Death Valley.

Former Clemson coach Jack Leggett owes a considerable chunk of his Hall-of-Fame credentials to his dominance of NC State. Leggett is gone now, fired by an empty suit masquerading as an athletics director. In Leggett’s place is Monte Lee, hired last summer from College of Charleston, where he built and maintained a mid-major powerhouse. In the 2010 NCAA Myrtle Beach Regional, Lee’s Cougars pounded the Wolfpack and future big league righthander Jake Buchanan by a 9-6 score that wasn’t that close. That was Lee’s second season at Charleston, his alma mater, and before he left to take the Clemson job, he coached the Cougars to three more NCAA postseason appearances, including a Super Regional berth in 2014. His seven-year record at Charleston was 276-145, an excellent .656 winning percentage and an average of nearly 40 wins per season. His last two teams there finished a combined 89-34.

Lee got off to a quick start at Clemson this spring, winning 17 of his first 20 games and five of his first six ACC contests, drawing near-universal acclaim for his handling of a young team in difficult circumstances. An early-season series win over arch-rival South Carolina guaranteed a lengthy honeymoon among the Tiger faithful. Turns out he needed it. After the quick start, which included a series win at Wake Forest, Lee’s Tigers got swept at Miami (could happen to anyone), lost two of three at Duke (not so easily explained), and got swept at Louisville (again, could happen to anyone). They managed to hold serve at home before dropping two of three to a floundering Georgia Tech squad two weeks ago.

The recent losses — eight defeats in their last 15 games and 12 in their last 18 ACC games — dropped the Tigers out of the national rankings, but their strength of schedule plus an impressive home series win last weekend against division-leading Florida State has kept them high in the NCAA’s Ratings Performance Index (the all-powerful RPI). Heading into this weekend’s series, NC State ranks eighth in the RPI, with Clemson right behind at No. 9.

The Tigers looked like their early-season selves in taking two of three from FSU, but of course, it’s no secret that Seminoles coach Mike Martin does not share Avent’s affection for the town of Clemson or anything about it. Clemson, in fact, has to rank near the top Martin’s list of least favorite places to visit, right between hell and Gainesville. Clemson’s fans can be loud, crude and omnipresent — imagine a casting call for the movie “Deliverance,” right in your own living room — and Martin has a reputation, deserved or not, for letting them get under his skin. Since joining the ACC in 1992, Martin’s Seminoles are now 14-25 in Death Valley. The Noles have lost nine of 14 series there, absorbing some memorable ass-whippings in front of the orange-clad faithful. Whether distracted by the hostile crowds or not, the Seminoles generally fare very poorly on their semi-annual trips to Tiger Town. They play like world-beaters most everywhere else.

None of which is meant to take anything away from Clemson’s series win last weekend. Quite the contrary. By defeating the Seminoles, and looking good doing it, Clemson has put some intrigue back into this weekend’s series with the Wolfpack, which is on track for a special season, but with a considerable amount of business still to tend to.

With three weekends left in the regular season, NC State is in position to challenge for its first-ever national seed for the NCAA Championship tournament, which would mean being in line to host a Super Regional. Following its trip to Death Valley, the Wolfpack travels to Louisville a week from now and then closes the regular season at home with a series against arch-rival North Carolina.

Clemson is fighting for a chance to host an NCAA regional. Louisville, No. 2 in the RPI, joins ACC rivals Florida State, Miami and NC State in the hunt for a national seed. No conference has ever gotten four of the eight national seeds, so one of those four is going to be disappointed. North Carolina, like Clemson, has struggled after a hot start but still has a high RPI and would like to fight its way back into the conversation for hosting a regional.

All three series are huge, especially the series next weekend at Louisville, and while losing any one of the three series might not necessarily be fatal, so much is on the line the next three weeks that the Wolfpack needs to win, win, win. A crash and burn at Clemson would not be a good way to start this final stretch.

There was a time not so long ago when a Wolfpack crash and burn in Death Valley was a sure thing. Those days are gone, at least for the time being, and the current NC State team has shown no signs of turning back. With so much on the line, it’s way too soon to turn back now.

• Relentless Offense: Duke’s pitching threw a wet blanket over NC State’s offense for much of last weekend’s series at Doak Field. The Wolfpack scored 16 runs in the series, 12 of them in the middle game of the series, and seven of the 12 in one inning when the Duke defense imploded, followed almost immediately by the pitching staff. Botched bunts on back-to-back at-bats led to the seven-run inning, with three of the runs unearned, but not necessarily undeserved. Take away that inning and the Wolfpack scored nine runs on 22 hits the rest of the series.

Last weekend notwithstanding, NC State’s offense continues to roll on, with a one-through-nine mentality in the lineup that makes this team so difficult to pitch to and so different from any Wolfpack teams of recent vintage. Seven of the nine everyday players are batting .305 or better, and everyone is hitting at least .286. Eight of the nine starters have at least 43 hits, with freshman left fielder Brett Kinneman lagging back with 24 only because he didn’t break into the lineup until five weeks ago.

Seven of the nine regulars are slugging at least .400, with first baseman Preston Palmeiro leading the way at .509. Six of the nine sport on-base percentages of .391 or better, led by Kinneman’s .449, right fielder Brock Deatherage’s .425 and third baseman Evan Mendoza’s .420. All nine have an OBP of at least .350. Mendoza, leading the team in batting with a .365 average and among the team leaders in both on-base percentage and slugging (.452), bats ninth. It’s that kind of lineup. Pass the baton. Keep the line moving. As a team, the Pack is hitting .310 and slugging .462 with a .391 on-base percentage.

The end result of all the stats is runs, and this Wolfpack team is averaging 7.02 runs per game through 43 games. The last NC State team to score more runs was the 2010 team, which scored 9.21 runs per game but with those ridiculous bats college baseball used prior to 2011. The Pack hit 98 home runs that year. The NCAA changed to the BBCOR bats for the 2011 season and NC State hasn’t hit 98 home runs in any two seasons combined since then. And that’s not a bad thing.

Focusing on the BBCOR era, only the 2012 team compares favorably offensively to the current squad. The 2012 Wolfpack, which averaged 6.93 runs per game, batted .297 and slugged .438 with a .376 on-base percentage. Of the seven everyday regulars on that team (two positions were platooned), five hit .300 or better with none lower than .278. Ryan Mathews belted 16 doubles and 17 home runs that year, giving him a team-best .628 slugging percentage. Danny Canela slugged .507, and four of the other five had slugging percentages of .417 or higher. Canela also led the team in batting (.348) and on-base percentage (.457), with Trea Turner sporting a.432 OBP and a school-record 57 steals.

Turner’s baserunning is the one dynamic that set the 2012 team apart. That club intimidated opponents with its speed — Turner completely unnerved opposing pitchers and catchers. While Deatherage is nearly as fast as Turner, whose sub-6.3 speed in the 60 was legendary, he is nowhere near the accomplished basestealer that Turner was. Turner and Jake Fincher, both freshmen, combined to steal 73 bases that year by themselves. The team stole 102. This year’s team, with 38 steals through 43 games, is on pace to steal 56 bases in the same number of games, 63.

While Turner scared the crap out of opponents with his speed, Mathews provided a power threat that the current team lacks, despite Chance Shepard’s 11 home runs. Those two gave the 2012 team a pair of dynamic star players unmatched by anyone on the current squad. Despite that, this year’s team has a better slugging percentage, a better on-base percentage, a better team batting average, and scores more runs per game thanks to the superior depth of its lineup. There are no breaks in this lineup, no easy outs. And that's what sets this team apart.

The 2012 team went to a Super Regional and might have advanced to the College World Series had it not been hosed by the NCAA Selection Committee and sent to top-seeded Florida for the Super Regional. The current team still has to write that chapter to its season and it’s a long way from here to there. Until then, comparisons are fun but ultimately meaningless.

• Sophomore Class, Addendum: A statistical note to add to last week’s piece about NC State’s sophomore class. The five sophomores in the everyday lineup — second baseman Stephen Pitarra, shortstop Joe Dunand, third baseman Evan Mendoza, center fielder Josh McLain and right fielder Brock Deatherage — plus reserve Shane Shepard (Tommy DeJuneas and Storm Edwards have 33 plate appearances between them and are not included), head into the Clemson series batting a collective .323 with a .402 on-base percentage and a .462 slugging percentage. They’ve stolen 31 bases in 40 attempts.

On the mound, DeJuneas and lefthander Brian Brown are a combined 8-2 with six saves and a 3.13 ERA. DeJunes has had his struggles in longer outings, but he’s been a reliable ninth-inning closer, and his fastball is electric. Brown has simply been, for the second year running, NC State’s best starting pitcher, sporting a 6-1 record with a 2.29 ERA in 11 starts.