Pack Homer Pod Ep. 14 - A Big Series...TIE

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A Podcast Dedicated Entirely to NC State Baseball #Pack9

Wesley Wilson (00:07)
and

Cal Parker (00:11)
Good evening and welcome to episode 14 of the Pack Homer podcast brought to you by Waters and Mathis CPAs. If you want to run rule the IRS, visit wmcpas .com. Apologies for last week. We have a really busy life sometimes and we recorded that podcast. Wesley wasn't with us because he was down there working on his tan in the Caribbean.

Me and Adam recorded one that was, I would say sub -par sound quality. So before we even get started tonight, we'll apologize for that. Adam, unavailable to join us tonight, but whenever there's not a podcast ready on Monday mornings for folks commute to work, we seem to get reached out to you. So I felt like it was important for us to go ahead and knock it out tonight.

Talk about this week's weekend series with Florida State and also the midweek game that we just continue to have bad luck in. Tonight it's just me and Wes. Wes, do you want to give us a little ACC run down this weekend? There was a lot of teams off, our neighbors, Carolina and Duke, both were, I don't even think Carolina played at all. Duke had a non -conference matchup, Wake did too, but let you give us a little run down.

Wesley Wilson (01:34)
Yeah, there were several teams that were out of conference play in terms of in conference play, Clemson over Georgia Tech, Notre Dame over Pitt, and Louisville actually swept BC. And that was the ACC games this week. So Louisville stays hot. They're winning some games. I think they're two games over 500 in the conference.

Cal Parker (02:05)
Yeah, right on our heels. And, you know, I think we were kind of disgruntled today that Florida State evidently had the rec league ground crew at their place in Tallahassee. And I guess they didn't pull the tarp or let the sprinklers on or something, but we only were able to get two in down in Tallahassee and we're hoping to get a series win. But I don't know, maybe we were better off not playing if we, if we did somehow lose two out of three down there.

That would have put us at 13 and 11 in the league with Louisville who is 13 and 11 and Louisville would have the tiebreaker over us because they swept us of course. I'll give you a little rundown of the standings right now in the Atlantic. Clemson's at 17 and 7. Florida State's at 14 and 9. NC State split with Florida State this weekend we're at 13 and 10. Louisville at 13 and 11. Wake Forest at 12 and 12 and then as far as postseason play.

Notre Dame and BC are kind of all but eliminated. They're 9 and 18 and 8 and 19. UNC on the coastal side is at 17 and 7. Virginia is at 14 and 10. Duke at 14 and 10. Virginia Tech at 13 and 11. Georgia Tech at 12 and 12. And then Miami's at 8 and 16, which is just kind of mind -boggling. And then Pitt at the, in the cellar at 6 and 18.

Before we talk about this weekend series Wes, I don't know if you were able to watch the the UNCW game the other night another Another tough loss to the Seahawks Seahawks are top 50 in the RPI now. They might be top 40 after the day they swept Campbell this weekend and I saw there that Tanner thatch Broke the home run record for UNCW with 22 in a season and as a sophomore

Has a chance to before the years I were to break the all -time UNCW home run record, which is 40. He's already hit 37 With a good part of the sophomore year left over which is you know, that's a lot of home runs and then you know You look at Condon down at Georgia. I think he's hit 31 now just this year, which is Just nuts. But anyway in that game Cozart hit didn't Cozart hit two home runs the other day against UNCW. Is that right?

Wesley Wilson (04:25)
I had limited service. I was out of the country, but I know there was at least one home.

But yeah, I had pretty limited service. I was checking in now and then when I could, but very limited service down.

Cal Parker (04:44)
Yeah, Wesley was texting with us and a lot of times he was only responding when we would make negative comments as to what was happening. But yeah, in that game, it kind of looked like, you know what, we're the better team and we're going to come out and win. We got up three to nothing, then we were up four to one. And then USCW scores three and a six. Yeah, Kozar did Homer twice, Homer in the first and in the fifth.

Wesley Wilson (04:50)
Yeah.

Cal Parker (05:14)
So we're up four to one, UNCW storms back. We're not able to hold on in the bullpen and actually lose in ten innings. My guy Derek Smith is the tough -looking loser in that ballgame. A game where we struck UNCW out 13 times, they struck us out five times. They threw pretty much Harry Hole staff.

We left 10 guys on base, they left eight on base. Their pitchers walked seven, our pitchers walked four. You just look at the box where you're like, man, maybe we probably should have won, but only have five hits and 10 inns, which is, I don't know, we're gonna talk about the offense a little bit more here in a minute, but I'm beginning to get a little concerned with the offense that we have spoken so highly of.

especially early on in the year, I think it's almost flipped with as to where I might be a little more concerned about where we stand offensively right now than even where we are as a staff. What do you think?

Wesley Wilson (06:24)
Yeah, I mean, if you're betting on NC State, don't bet on them on Tuesdays and Sundays. I can tell you that that is a poor bet if you're doing that. And, you know, I don't know, when we talk about offense, like I said, I've been out of the loop the last over a week out of the country, but I listened to Alex's pod and talking about the bottom half of the lineup and you have to like what we saw.

Cal Parker (06:31)
Hehehehe.

Wesley Wilson (06:53)
at least this weekend from the bottom half of the lineup, some really good at bats for sure. We just didn't really, we didn't capitalize from the top of the lineup a lot of times there.

So yeah, I mean, I think we got to put it all together, but there are definitely some concerns, especially. Well, you kind of think Sunday would just be an anomaly at some point, you know, where the bats are going to click on Sunday, but you know, I don't know. We just hadn't, it definitely hasn't clicked. What, maybe what the BC series when we had the marathon that was, you know, 16, 13 or whatever that game ended up being, is that the last time?

Cal Parker (07:39)
wind blowing out 30 mile an hour. Yes, the last time we really scored any runs on a Sunday, it seems like.

Wesley Wilson (07:44)
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if we need to change ministers on the team or if we're not going to church. I don't know what's happening on Sunday, early a but we might need to swap something up here.

Cal Parker (07:50)
Hahaha!

I guess somebody else is coming to talk to the guys.

Wesley Wilson (08:02)
It's not hitting. I mean, you know, at times, I think, you know, even today, early on, we were hard. I was hard on Dom, you know, with some early walks. And hell, it wouldn't matter if we had Tom Glavin out there on the mound. He can't score runs. So, I mean, even on a Sunday, eight runs, I mean, that's for a Sunday game. We should have some more offense than that to at least keep us competitive in the game.

And I know with Eli, you know, he had that hit. The center fielder made a great play. And not just that, there were several great plays by Florida State, but they're a good team. You expect that. It's not like they're doing something that is just out of the equation. They're making plays like any top -10 team would in the country.

Cal Parker (08:47)
Yeah, I want to talk about our lineup here in a minute and if we any adjustments that we kind of feel like maybe we should look at, I don't know, you know, with Noah coming back, that's it. That's nice. But so we go into the game on, let's talk about the two games with Florida State first. We did split and that was a huge split. We jumped up the top 21 or two in the RPI today. Gosh, I mean, if you look at like all of our metrics, like,

We're like 13 out of 14 in the ACC and in team ERA, our batting average is not in the top half. We don't hit a lot of home runs. I think a lot of our stats are skewed by the fact that we just get our doors blown off on Sundays. But like a team, we're like, we can win on Fridays and Saturdays, you know, unfortunately we didn't get to play Saturday this week, but the other night or last week in the podcast, Wes, I said,

So, or maybe it wasn't even on our podcast. I was on the Trinity Road, the lot cast this week with those fellas and they asked me, you know, what would kind of doom us in a series with Florida State? And I said, well, one, if, you know, Sam had been, you know, kind of struggling a little bit lately, if Sam doesn't get us, you know, five or six innings, it's going to be tough sledding for the rest of the weekend. We're a bullpen. Well, that game Friday night, if you watched, we got...

rained on or rained on light and whatever. We had a weather delay right in the middle of that game. Their starter who honestly we did something to him no one else has done all year. We had nine hits off of him in three innings and their starter and our starter Sam had to come out. Sam had only pitched two innings so it became a bullpen game when the game resumed in the bottom half of the third and

A game where you know we brought Van Damme in again Van Damme. I mean honestly didn't look very good and then once even more concerning and we don't know you for certain at all. There's been any confirmation but Van Damme come out to pitch the fourth and throwing his warm up pitches. He left the game with an injury and of course we didn't see him anymore Friday or the rest of the weekend. So for a team that.

We feel like we've got some question marks in the bullpen. Van Dam has been one of our more reliable pieces. We lose him in that game and then Ku Klip Kensiglio came in and he was phenomenal. 4 .1 innings, two hits, five strikeouts, one walk and really, really kept us in the ballgame. We were lucky, like I said earlier, we jumped out and got six runs on Arnold.

who was their ace. But even that offense, Wesley, I mean, I know you were able to watch that one. There's a lot of small ball in that game. You remember some of our hits. I mean, I know Kozart hit a home run and AMAC hit a home run in that game. But how many bunts in field hits do we have? I mean, it seemed like a lot, like not a lot of contact, but found a hole.

Wesley Wilson (12:08)
Yeah, I mean, I remember Chase, man. He hit a ground ball that I've never seen a ground ball go that high.

you know, off the ground and, you know, Chase is, you know, he's a great player, but he's not known for his speed by any means. And it wasn't even close to first base. And then you add in the bunts. Mayhevner has some great, laid down some great bunts and pretty sure baby Nixon did the same. So yeah, we were playing small ball and I think we even had a suicide squeeze in there. You know, it was fun. It was fun. Yeah.

Cal Parker (12:44)
That turned into a hit. Didn't get him out of the plate. Turned into a hit, yeah.

Wesley Wilson (12:46)
Yeah, it was fun to watch. It was fun to watch that game. And like you say, when we go back to metrics and, you know, from offense as a whole, of course, I mean, Cozart, I mean, now if you look at from, if you look at Pennington, Cozart, and AMAC, I think that's probably what we thought beginning of the season. You're going to have three studs there.

But even as a season as a whole, maybe we start seeing some of that, especially with the bottom half of the lineup where those guys are just battling. Going back to Chase, Nixon, he's only struck out, what, like nine times the entire year? So, you know that guy's going to put the ball in play the majority of time.

So I don't know from a metric standpoint, because Cozart started out slow, how much of that you really buy into. I still think the team can hit for power. I think we got to get Eli going. I don't think anybody when we were, or when Coach Avin was constructing the lineup would have thought Eli would be batting 260 with five home runs. This doesn't make a whole lot of.

You just wouldn't have thought that's where we would be at this point. But you know, Cozart's hot and if I'm assembling the lineup come, because I'm assuming we're not going to play Tuesday night, but if I'm assembling, is it Virginia next weekend, right?

Cal Parker (14:22)
It is Virginia next weekend. I did see something, which the weather looks like it's going to be terrible here this week, but tell them what next week. The NCAA has highly discouraged teams from canceling midweek games. And what they view as folks trying to protect their RPI. The NCAA I think released a statement on that, which that game against Norfolk state, I think they were 11 and 34 as of yesterday. I don't know where they are, but us playing that game will not help us at all RPI wise. We can beat them 20 to nothing.

and we're gonna go down in the RPI. So, you know, I'm all right with it raining out, but I've got a feeling that the NCA is gonna wanna make sure it rains before it gets, it gets banged.

Wesley Wilson (15:02)
Well, some weird stuff going on. I don't know if you saw the ECU South Florida, the Saturday game was postponed because South Florida had sickness in their team. That's what it said. There was a medical reason that game was postponed. So, hell, I don't know anymore. I mean, there's just things that happened that I can't understand. But I can't believe that we're actually going to play those guys on Tuesday.

I mean, of course, as we're assessing, as we're assessing where, you know, the extent of Van Damme's injury, you know, we really, I can't see one benefit of us playing, is it Norfolk State, Norfolk State on Tuesday night.

Cal Parker (15:34)
Yeah.

No, I agree. So in that game against Florida State, we went eight to seven. And if you look at the box score, like it was going to be a, it was going to be a tough pill to swallow. If, if we don't win that game, we beat Florida State 12 to seven. We out hit Florida State 14 to seven. we walked four as a staff. They walked eight as a staff. We left 12 guys on. I think one of the, probably the most frustrated we were talking there in that game was when.

Wesley Wilson (16:10)
Okay.

Cal Parker (16:21)
we had the bases loaded and they'd walk three guys in a row and Eli came up and swing it first pitch with one out and hit a lazy pop hook to the third baseman and we're like, my gosh, like anything productive.

Wesley Wilson (16:35)
You what, three guys in a row?

Cal Parker (16:38)
Yeah, not like he's not struggling a little bit there.

Wesley Wilson (16:39)
Yeah, no, no, no.

That was tough to swallow, the circumstances there. Of course, if he, like Cal said in the text, if he'd hit it 400 foot, he'd been a hero.

Cal Parker (16:52)
Amen. And then in the ninth, you know, like it seems like you always have to do if you're an NC State fan, then we had to go through now or one, two, three in their lineup. Derek Smith came in. I mean, he was he was phenomenal. He got one of the things. Gosh, I don't know if anyone else watches the games and feels this way. So first and foremost, I'm happy that Derek Smith came in and got a save.

But I am kind of like perplexed if y 'all watch the game. My man came in on the eighth and he was throwing a bunch of sliders. He obviously throws a great slider. I think that if he threw...

I don't know Wesley like 20, I hadn't looked at the exact box score, but if he threw 20, let's see, he threw 30 pitches in that game. Did he throw 27 sliders?

Wesley Wilson (17:51)
At least.

Cal Parker (17:53)
I just don't get it. And like maybe I'm like too old school and I would, if I was coaching the staff, we'd have the ERA of 26, but my gosh, like dude, those 95, I think he threw like two or three fastballs. Like he just kept throwing slider after slider after slider.

Wesley Wilson (18:09)
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's some advanced metrics that the staff has, and maybe that we don't, but I agree with you. It seemed like it was a lot for a guy that has that power ability to overpower the batters. But, hey, it worked out. So.

Cal Parker (18:38)
Yeah, I think one of the best I really didn't like was I felt like we had to get through so many sliders that got fouled off. I was like, man, this guy is like so off balance. If you just bang him with 95 right here, he's just gonna walk back to the dugout. I think we will walk them on another slider. But anyway, Derek Smith came in and gets the save. And at the time we didn't know it, but that guaranteed us at least a tie in the series because game two ends up being canceled.

And then today we go out and play what was scheduled to be game three. So we ended up playing a two game set with Florida State. And today as Wesley has already alluded to, another Sunday where we get our doors blown off. Dom came out, had really a chance to get out of the first inning and it'd be a two nothing game. But we...

We didn't turn the double play. They gave us the double play and we spiked the ball. I think it was Butterworth spiked the ball to first base that Pennington couldn't handle. We don't get the double play and then they end up scoring two more runs and we're down four to nothing early. Do get one run in the second and four to one is as close as it ever gets. Left hand guys on the day. You know, if you look at the at the box, we have a hit, one hit from Eli.

Two from AMAC, a hit from Butterworth, hit from Luke, two from Heavener again. And that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, I wanted to talk about, so what do you make of this lineup now that we have Noah back? So if you guys are not in the loop, we lost Josh Hope for the season, terrible injury on a collision in the outfield, broke his leg. And we have moved, you know who?

Luke Nixon, who'd been playing a really, really good second base. We've moved him to left field actually, now that we got Noah back, which I think we're all happy that we have Noah back in the lineup. We moved Luke to left, Noah's playing right, and now Chase has become our everyday DH. And we've taken him out of left field and decided to play his brother Luke out there. But one of the things we discussed a lot today, Wesley, is we seem to have gotten a lot of production.

out of the bottom half of the lineup this weekend. And the top half kind of seems to be a little hit and miss right now. So let's go back to the lead off spot. We've had Eli Serrano lead off, Noah Soles, Brandon Butterworth, Josh Hote. Did Josh ever lead off? I don't know if he did. Lucas lead off.

Wesley Wilson (21:25)
I think you did it one or two games.

Cal Parker (21:29)
So we've had five guys in the leadoff spot. So if you're writing a lineup chord right now, who are you leading off?

Wesley Wilson (21:39)
I don't want Eli there. I think he fits better further down the lineup. I mean, it's no secret, I like Luke a lot. I think Luke would be a good.

lead off, you know, but I don't know, I don't know that you don't, you know, that we're not, that I'm not overthinking it. Soles has been productive at lead off for, for, for multiple years. And, you know, I don't think he can go wrong, whether it be Nixon or whether it be Soles at lead off. I think at this point, you know, if I, if I was a coach at event, I would probably go with the veteran because, you know, he's, he's been here. We're going down the, we're down the.

home stretch now of the season, going into the last two series, then into the conference tournament, then to regionals. You know, I think from a confidence standpoint, you put the veteran out there that you know that he's going to see the ball, he's going to have good at bats. So for me, I would go with Soles.

Cal Parker (22:41)
Yeah, I like Soles or Luke. You know, neither one of those guys strike out a ton. Eli, to me, you know, he kind of, I mean, he swings through a little, a few more pitches than those guys do, it seems like. I know there's probably a metric out there that we can find on how many pitches that batters seep her, and at bat, I think that you want a guy in the leadoff spot that's gonna go deep in counts and grind.

You look at Luke as a freshman and the fact that he's, you know, over a hundred plate appearances now, like a hundred, a hundred, close to 140, 150 plate appearances. Cause he's been hit seven times too, but he's walked 26 times and only struck out 18 times, which is pretty impressive for a kid that was playing high school baseball a year ago. so I like, I kind of like Luke, but I'm no, I've said it before and I agree with you Wesley. He's just done it so for so long, that I do think that.

It makes our lineup better if we can move Serrano back down toward the middle of the lineup where he can look to elevate and celebrate because I think that is one of the glaring things right now that he's only hit five home runs. I think he's a guy we expected to hit double digits, still can. I mean, he might hit five next weekend, a couple weeks ago.

We were talking about Kozarts only hit six or seven home runs. And we need some offense out of Kozart. Now he's hit 15 all of a sudden. He's got a red hat. I do like Pennington hitting second. For a guy with his power, you don't normally think about having that guy bat in the two hole. But with Amac and Kozart behind him, I do like him hitting second. He hits the ball so hard, so often, that I feel like you want him in the box.

Wesley Wilson (24:17)
Yeah.

Cal Parker (24:38)
you know, with our lineup, especially kind of depleted with injuries and, you know, some of the really young guys that have struggled, I feel like you won't, you won't Pennington to get as many play appearances as he can, as he can. So I like Pennington hitting second. but yeah, I think it'll lead off, next weekend. now that I'm sure bringing Noah back, they wanted to get him a little game action before they just put him in the one hole. But I think it's probably.

time that we go back to that. Anything else on the lineup? Anything else that stood out to you this weekend, Wes, watching those games?

Wesley Wilson (25:23)
Yeah, I think we've talked about it time and time again. Butterworth, you know, he has really good at best to his ball hard. So I still like her a lot. I have no issues or a lot of I mean, you know, we don't know. We don't have the. You know, the long ball potential one through nine like we had, you know, maybe a couple of years ago or a few years ago now, but from a from a.

Capability standpoint from one to nine. I guess a good lineup. Okay.

Cal Parker (25:55)
We've got five guys on our team with a significant number of vats who have walked more than they struck out. You wanna try to name them? You wanna take a guess?

Wesley Wilson (26:07)
Chase, for sure. Luke, you just said Luke.

Cal Parker (26:08)
Cheers.

Wesley Wilson (26:16)
Not Eli.

Cal Parker (26:19)
But it's closer than I thought. He's walked 25 times, struck out 29. Chase has walked 18 times and struck out nine. So two to one, which is kind of crazy.

Wesley Wilson (26:23)
Yeah.

Yeah. So Butterworth. So... So's.

Cal Parker (26:37)
Butterworth 31 walks, 25 strikeouts. 18 walks, 11 strikeouts. So both Nixon, Soles, Butterworth, and who do you think the fifth one is?

Wesley Wilson (26:48)
So one other guy, was it Ho?

Cal Parker (26:51)
Not hope.

Wesley Wilson (26:54)
Not a Mac.

Cal Parker (26:54)
It is Jacob Kozart. Kozart has struck out 33 times, but he has walked 37 times. So, you know, he's a lot more patient than maybe even it seems like sometimes. But yeah, I think we have a lineup. Like you said, we'd like to see a little bit more pop, especially after you get through the first five or six guys.

Wesley Wilson (26:57)
Cozart, yeah. Okay.

Wow.

Cal Parker (27:20)
But

Wesley Wilson (27:20)
But those guys, I mean, if five through nine plays like they did, the next two series and we get some production from top half of the lineup, that's tough to beat. I mean, it really is.

Cal Parker (27:35)
Yeah, I mean, A -Max at 18 home runs now, Pennington's at 11. I mean, Pennington's a guy that if he went and hit six in a weekend, it wouldn't surprise anybody.

Wesley Wilson (27:44)
Yeah, yeah.

Cal Parker (27:46)
Cozart, same thing, I mean, Cozart got on a tear there where he hit like nine to nine games. So I think that, yeah, I mean, if we could get a little bit more juice out of Eli, I mean, Luke and Butterworth have both hit the ball at the park. So yeah, it'd be nice to maybe get a couple guys hot in the bottom of the lineup, but I still think we have a lineup that we can put on the field that can win.

Wesley Wilson (28:12)
Yeah. Yeah. For me, for the power guys, I just don't think there's anything, you know, if again, like I said a few minutes ago from Cozart to AMAC to Pennington, those guys have kind of produced what you probably felt they would produce at the beginning of the season. It's just really Eli that you, you hope that can get hot here down the home stretch. And then you up your other guys, you know, the other five guys in the lineup kind of

can do what you hope they can do. I mean, none of those guys are going to hit double -digit home runs in a season. But from an offensive standpoint, I don't know where they're at far. And I don't know what's strange about the pitching. And even with Van Dam, you know, and, you know, we pray that Van Dam, you know, maybe it's just a strain or maybe it's just a pull. But I'm feeling better about the pitching than I have all season. I don't know why. Maybe that's just...

I had too many beers in the Bahamas, I don't know. But I got on, I don't, you know, from, from what we saw from Consiglio and, and Derek Smith and, you know, now we're getting Logan back. It's not, you know, I think we can win games, but you're not going to win any games scoring one run ever.

Cal Parker (29:12)
Hahahaha!

And Duden even had a 450 ERA. I mean, I feel like that's a misleading number. I mean, cause he can come in and be flat out dominant at times.

I do think that, gosh, I just, I hope that that Sam and Dom's vest is left in them. One thing I will say, very encouraging, we talked about it a lot on here, it was huge, very big deal that we saw Logan Whitaker today. I'm ashamed that we made it 30 minutes into the podcast without mentioning the fact that we got Logan Whitaker back. So it's a shame that, you know, you get Whitaker back and Van Damme goes down immediately afterwards, but.

It was a big deal to get Logan Whitaker back. He wasn't dominant today by any means, but he struggled a little bit with command, which he normally doesn't. He had three walks in the inning, which for him, he's not a guy that walks people. But he was 93 below eyes, so that's at or above where he was earlier in the year. So I thought a real big deal. I don't think he'll keep struggling with command. I mean, he's a strike thrower.

Wesley Wilson (30:42)
Yeah, if we look at the rest of the season, you got two series, you know, it's going to take him a little time to get his strength back. If the rumors that I heard anywhere that he lost 20 pounds, so it's going to take him some time to get back. There's some of his strength and endurance, but he should be prime when it comes time for a regional. And who knows, maybe that's a blessing in disguise that...

Cal Parker (30:43)
just haven't been out there.

Wesley Wilson (31:10)
He's got less innings on his arm going into a regional compared to where we were last year when he had a lot of miles on his arm going into the Columbia regional.

Cal Parker (31:23)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, he's he definitely should be a little little fresher even though he's having to get back in game shape. sorry, I just

Wesley Wilson (31:31)
Even Sam, I mean, unfortunately he hasn't pitched his best the last month, but it's not like Sam's going out throwing 120 pitches every Friday night here. So depending on what happens, our arms could be fresher than last year, at least going into Columbia.

Cal Parker (31:57)
And the Maron start the other night against UNCW was really, really good. So if you get back to where on the weekend you can roll out, if you can roll out Sam Dom and Witt, and then you have Consiglio and Maron left -handed out of the pen, like two guys that have proven that they can throw innings. I mean, if you look now on the year Maron has thrown 42 innings and...

Wesley Wilson (32:02)
Yeah.

Cal Parker (32:26)
consiglio is now up to 30 innings. So you have two left -handed guys that you know can eat innings for you. And then also you got two right -handers now that you're pretty confident in. And Derek Smith and Jacob Duden. I mean really, really would be nice to get Van Damme back. I mean, I'll be paying attention to what happens there, but you kind of feel like the pitching's coming around and you hope that the, you hope that the,

the bats start to come with it. So before...

Wesley Wilson (33:00)
I mean, from a, from a, from a series standpoint in the series, if you look at what we've, you know, we've beaten, do we beaten Carolina, we beaten, Clemson. I mean, their pitching hasn't looked that much better than ours. You know?

Cal Parker (33:19)
No, I think too, like our schedule is really, I mean, it's been just really, really good. So I am interested, that's what we're gonna get into next is talking about the Virginia series next weekend. So we played Virginia, Virginia in the RPI is number 11 now. I think after today, Virginia is 35 and 12. Their number of.

So another opportunity to go go gather some RPI wins if we can do it. But if you look at Virginia strength of schedule, it is 37 where Florida State that we played this weekend, there was 26 NC State is number eight now. And by the end of next weekend, it's probably going to be top five schedule in the entire country. Is there any concern because I had someone ask me this this week, is there any concern that if we go loose?

Our last six games we just get left completely in the cold.

Wesley Wilson (34:21)
I mean, you can't lose six games in a row. I mean, you know, the reality is that we sit here and we talk about, and I don't know what it is, maybe it's 0 and 6 when we look at our record versus the North Carolina teams. ECU, we lost to UNCW, we lost to Campbell, we lost one. UNCG, we lost one. So 6 versus 0 and 6 against North Carolina teams. So I think maybe if we had won a couple of those, but, you know,

Cal Parker (34:37)
Twice. Twice.

Wesley Wilson (34:50)
What's our overall schedule? 26 and 18? Is that our overall record?

Cal Parker (34:56)
We're 26 and 18. And then, you know, if you look, and I know a lot of guys too, if you read D1 or some of these publications, they don't love RPI anymore. I don't, I mean, I don't know. You gotta have something to kind of, a metric to go off of. I don't know if I love or hate RPI, but like Duke's on every host line. Like everybody has Duke as a host. We're 22 in the RPI, Duke's 24. Our strength of schedule's eight, Duke's strength of schedule's 39. Head to head, we beat Duke two out of three. Like how do they host them? We don't.

Wesley Wilson (35:27)
Maybe, you know, we don't have the headline guys like Santucci, you know what I mean? Like, maybe that plays into the marketing aspect of that. I really don't think we're going to go 0 -6 against Virginia or Wake Forest. If it happens, who's our midweek game? Not this week, but the following week.

Cal Parker (35:49)
This is our last midweek.

Wesley Wilson (35:51)
Yes, I mean that would put us at 500 record, right? So we would be 24, 24, is that right?

Cal Parker (35:58)
well, no, we're at 27 and 18.

Wesley Wilson (36:00)
27, right, yeah. So it will be 20.

Cal Parker (36:03)
or 26 and 18, I'm sorry. So we got to sit. Yeah.

Wesley Wilson (36:06)
26 -24? Yeah, I mean, I don't think, yeah, I don't think, you know, I think when they would look at our, I think LSU is probably in about the same situation as we are. LSU, yeah, so LSU and Florida, the same situation we are. LSU beat A this weekend. I don't know if they swept them or if it was a, they won two out of three. And I think the committee would definitely look at,

Cal Parker (36:13)
We don't need to lose the last six games.

Florida as well.

Wesley Wilson (36:36)
your series wins and then you would see the series wins against Clemson Health Care lottery to be top 10.

But I don't think you want to put yourself in that situation because two years ago, I can remember my nephew, I couldn't watch the selection process. My nephew calls me and I think he says, we didn't get in. I thought he meant we didn't get a host. And then we didn't make the tournament. What do you mean? And we had a what, a 28, I think we were 28 RPI, 27 RPI, something like that.

Cal Parker (37:04)
Yeah.

Wesley Wilson (37:12)
I think we might have been the highest or lowest RPI that never made the tournament. So, no different than basketball. I think you just don't put yourself in that situation and you don't have to worry about it. I think we can win the series at Virginia and then win the series against Wake. Hey, we're due to beat Wake Forest. I mean, at this point, if Wake Forest comes in and sweeps us, they just dominate our.

They just dominate us. Like we're due to beat Wake Forest. I have a hard time believing, you know, that they're going to come in and sweep us in Raleigh on senior, senior weekend. So, you know, hopefully that's just not a situation that we have to cross.

Cal Parker (37:59)
So let's talk about Virginia real quick. Virginia is hitting 337 as a team, which is just wild to me. They've hit 82 home runs. If you look at them, they like to run, they steal, they've stolen 66 bags. They have struck out, you know, even hitting 337, they struck out 318 times. To compare that to us, we're hitting 279. We've struck out 281 times.

Another thing, Wesley, that really stuck out to me when I was looking at Virginia stats, if you go outside of Evan Bonko, for them who is five and three with a 430 ADRA, you know, nothing crazy, 66 strikeout, 61 inners, they have no picture on their entire staff who's done more than 40 innings. So it kind of feels like they're gonna just try to slug you to death.

But I mean, they have a 559 ERA as a team, but they have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 guys who have thrown double -digit innings for them. And then they have another three guys that have thrown more than eight. So 17 guys that have thrown eight or more innings for Virginia. So to me, I feel like...

They're going to run a lot of different arms out at us. I mean, opponents are hitting 282 against them. I think that, you know, it's one of those games where on paper, you know, maybe we can slug it out with them. I mean, opponents are hitting 265 against us, and we've complained about our pitching. They're hitting 282 versus Virginia. So I think it's a series that we can go up to Charlotte Hill and win. I don't think there's any...

Any question I would like to get at least one, but I mean, I'm a little more greedy than that and hoping that we get two. And man, if we somehow went up there and if we're gonna win two, I'd love to see us win on Friday and Sunday. I mean, it'd be a lot less nerve wracking to win Friday and Saturday, but it would be nice to win a game on Sunday.

Wesley Wilson (40:19)
We're due for a game on Sunday.

Cal Parker (40:22)
We're due for a game on Sunday. No question. So we guess, go ahead.

Wesley Wilson (40:26)
I know the correct, I was just sitting here thinking the crazy thing about when you think about the SEC and the ACC and the teams in those conferences that when you look at Vanderbilt, you look at Georgia, LSU, Florida, there's gonna be some, even in the ACC for NC State, for instance, there's gonna be some really good teams that are two seeds.

in regionals this year. I know this sounds crazy, but with some of those teams, it wouldn't be the worst thing. I don't want to say we don't want to host. We definitely want to host. But sometimes there's certain regionals that being the two seed might not be the worst thing in the world.

Cal Parker (40:55)
Yes.

Yeah, I think we'll talk about that a lot more next week because I really think that we go to Virginia and we win two out of three. We're probably going to be on the host line. You think?

Wesley Wilson (41:30)
I think if you went to, I think if you win the Virginia series, you're hosting. It can't even be a lot. Unless you go and get swept by way farce, you have to be a host. And like I've said several times in this podcast, ECU, you know, we would have, it would have really benefited us to split at least with ECU. I think ECU is an incredible team, but they haven't played anybody. So ECU's last top 50 series was the second weekend of the season when they played North Carolina. That's.

They haven't played anybody. You know, does that mean, yeah, in a series, does that mean that, yeah, does that mean they're not a great team? No, that's not what they're saying, but they're not, they're not. I mean, think of Coach Avent, what he's having to do with, you know, plug and play here the last, you know, 10 weeks for what he has available. You know, from Cliff's standpoint, Cliff can, he can rest players against some of these guys that they're playing on the weekends. We don't have that luxury, so.

Cal Parker (42:01)
Not in a series, not in a series. They played Duke this week, but again, not a series.

Wesley Wilson (42:30)
You know, I'm not again, that's not saying ECU is not a great team or can't go to Omaha. Certainly they can. I just think it's a different situation where you're going from, I mean, we played Florida State this weekend at Tallahassee. You get back to Raleigh tonight. You have to, of course, we're not going to play a midweek game. I hope we don't play the midweek game. And you got to prepare to go to Virginia, you know, and Virginia has been to Omaha.

I don't know how many times the last five years, basically every year, you know? Right, so it's just, it's a different animal that we're dealing with. And that's not to say, you know, that ECU is not a good team or other teams, the PAC -12, I guess the PAC -12 doesn't exist anymore. It's not saying they're not good teams. It's just they're not going through the gauntlet every weekend that we are in.

Cal Parker (43:01)
They know how to get there. They know what airport to take.

Wesley Wilson (43:27)
What we hope is that that pays dividends at the end of the season when we've had such good pictures and look at the look at the development of consiglio this weekend where he's going into these hostile environments and you know, a couple of weekends against Clemson. He might not have pitched his best game, but he was pitching on a Sunday starting at Clemson. That makes a difference. You know that that that starts that start showing up here at the end of the year.

Cal Parker (43:53)
Yeah, been there, done that starts to matter. So probably gonna be in a slugfest next week in Charlottesville. Hope our pitching shows up and hope next weekend that we, when we're doing the pod, that we can have a serious conversation about our hosting potential. Appreciate you guys tuning in. Pack Homer pod on Instagram and X, still looking for followers. So.

Please do follow us there if you if it's not too troublesome for you You can follow us on YouTube to last week our production was so Mickey Mouse that we did not even put our pod on On the YouTube's last week, but we'll try to get back up there again this week You can of course still find us on Apple podcast and Spotify appreciate you tuning in and We'll catch up with you next week If my music will play Maybe

Wesley Wilson (44:50)
Ha ha.

Cal Parker (44:53)
One, two, three.