UNC Baseball vs Duke Preview
Duke Overview & History
Head Coach: Corey Muscara (22-20)
1st season at Duke (1st season overall)
Muscara has spent much of his coaching career as a pitching coach. He coached at St. John’s from 2013-2017. In 2017, St. John’s had the 8th-best team ERA in the country. Muscara also served as the pitching coach at Maryland from 2018 to 2021 and most recently held the position at Wake Forest, where he worked with some incredible Demon Deacon pitching staffs.
In 2023, Muscara was named D1 Baseball’s Assistant Coach of the Year. That same year, Wake Forest led the nation with a 2.83 team ERA.
Head-to-Head vs. UNC
Since 1955, UNC is 150-48 against Duke (66-23 away) (7-3 over the last 10 meetings)
The two teams last met in 2024 for a three-game series in Chapel Hill last year. UNC took two of three in the series (including an 8-7 win in 14 innings in Game 3).
Photo Courtesy of UNC Athletics
Duke This Season
Duke has series wins vs. Miami and Louisville and series losses vs. Notre Dame, @ Virginia Tech, @ Florida State, vs. NC State, and @ Boston College.
Duke is currently #72 in the NET with a 5-12 record in quad 1 games. This is a quad 2 opportunity for UNC.
Photo Courtesy of Duke Athletics
Current Team Rankings for Duke
Duke ranks 15th in the ACC in team batting average (.273), 14th in hits (360), 13th in RBIs (245), 14th in OBP (.382), and 14th in slugging % (.463).
Duke’s defense struggles some. They have the second-most errors in the ACC (60). Their fielding % is the second worst in the conference (.960).
Staff ERA ranks 11th (5.96). They’ve given up the third most walks in the ACC (197) and have given up the fifth most home runs (49). They also hit a lot of batters (76 total).
One thing Duke excels at is stealing bases. They are first in the ACC in stolen bases (123-144) (85.4%). However, they’ve also given up the most stolen bases in the ACC (95- the next highest is Notre Dame with 62). They’ve only caught five runners all season.
In Game 1 between Duke & Boston College last weekend, BC tied an NCAA record with eight stolen bases in one inning. They had 14 for the entire game.
Expect Schaffner, Hull, French, etc. to be running all weekend long.
On the flip side, UNC has only allowed 13 stolen bases this season. The pitching staff has done an excellent job of holding runners on.
Key Players for Duke
R.J. Hamilton - Utility
Vanderbilt transfer
Leads Duke in batting average (.319) and is second on the team in OBP (.429).
4 home runs, 4 3B, and 6 2B on the season; also has 22 stolen bases (top 5 in the ACC- has only been caught stealing twice).
Tyler Albright - OF
Albright is the lone returning position player (starter) from last year’s Duke squad; many transferred after former HC Chris Pollard took the job at Virginia.
Hit .298 last season (.435 OBP) with 10 HR and 45 RBIs. Started all 62 games for Duke last year.
His BA is quite a bit lower this season at .231; however, he still leads Duke in OBP (.456).
Walks a ton- he has 40 walks so far this season, which is near the top in the ACC.
Interesting fact: He is the nephew of former Tar Heel Ethan Albright, who was First Team All-ACC in 1993 (offensive tackle) and went on to play 16 seasons in the NFL as a long snapper
Andy Leon - RHP
Columbia transfer
Duke’s Sunday starter (I think he’s the best of Duke’s weekend starters).
2-2, 5.15 ERA, 41 Ks, 18 walks, 8.5 SO9.
Leon has had an up and down season. He has had some strong outings (6.0 IP, 1 ER, 2 hits, 2 Ks, 1 walk) against NC State, but he’s also had some starts where he’s struggled and is pulled early.
Other Notes:
Outside of MAYBE their stolen base prowess, nothing this Duke team does really scares you. With that said, it’s a rivalry, and anything is possible.
We are also interested in seeing UNC’s mindset going into this weekend. Will they come out focused, or will they come out slow after the big series win against GT (and being hyped up all week long)?
Game Times:
Thursday: 7 PM
Friday: 6 PM
Saturday: 3 PM
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