Notebook: Vasil steady again on Sunday for the Cavaliers

Mike Vasil has always looked the part. He showed up at Virginia listed at 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds. Before the big right-hander first took the mound for the Hoos, his head coach made physical comparisons to Roger Clemens.

Vasil has spent the two years since growing up as a pitcher.

“I love what he’s doing,” UVa head coach Brian O’Connor said Monday, a day after watching Vasil throw six shutout innings at North Carolina. “He’s aggressive. He’s having fun out there. His competitive spirit is at a really high level.”

Check the ACC leaderboard among eligible pitchers and Vasil’s name shows up in several categories. He’s one of nine eligible starters in the league yet to allow an earned run and the only one yet to walk a batter. Vasil is tied for third in the league in innings pitched (12.0) and sixth in opponent batting average (.163). He’s off to a 2-0 start.

And he has embraced the role of UVa’s Sunday starter.

“I really love being in that position. I love being in that role,” he said following his season debut against UConn. “It’s really an ideal position, the kind of competitor I am.”

Vasil’s first start came with UVa’s season-opening series at home against the Huskies tied at a game apiece. A week later, Vasil was on the bump in Chapel Hill, with the Wahoos trying to avoid opening ACC play by getting swept.

In both starts, Vasil gave UVa six strong innings. He gave up one unearned run against the Huskies then held UNC scoreless on Sunday. He has 11 strikeouts on the season, with just seven hits and no walks allowed.

Vasil has worked efficiently in those two victories, throwing a first-pitch strike to 28 of the 44 hitters he’s faced. He’s only faced two three-ball counts this season, both coming against UConn. Only 20 of his 71 pitches at UNC were out of the strike zone.

“His stuff is the best it’s been,” O’Connor said. “His velocity is pretty much 93 to 96 miles an hour. He’s throwing his off-speed pitches for strikes. He’s attacking the strike zone. He’s not giving away free passes.”

Vasil says he’s motivated by the stakes of a Sunday start whether he’s pitching for a sweep, a series win, or like on Sunday, trying to help his team get one weekend win. He also appreciates the opportunity to study the opponent’s lineup for two days before taking the mound for a series finale.

O’Connor believes it’s a role where Vasil could make a big difference for the Cavaliers this spring.

“Because in most cases, the pitching starts to fall off a little bit after the first couple of starters,” he said. “Probably not in this league this year, but he’s a pretty good weapon to go out there in Game 3 and give us a good chance to win.”

Vasil’s strong outing and a fifth-inning two-run home run from Nic Kent proved to be the difference in Sunday’s 3-2 victory. It was the third straight one-run game of the series, with UNC beating the Wahoos 3-2 on Thursday and 2-1 on Saturday.

“Candidly, sometimes when you go on the road in this league, sometimes getting out of town with one win can be a successful weekend,” O’Connor admitted on Monday. “I’m not saying you settle for that at all. We’ve got to be better, and there’s clearly areas that we need to improve on, quickly.”

The head coach singled out that he’d like to see “more consistently competitive, tough at-bats” from his lineup. O’Connor’s team hit just .179 against the Tar Heels with a .158 batting average with runners in scoring position. The Cavaliers struck out 30 times in three games.

For the season, UVa is 13th among 14 ACC teams in batting average (.232) and slugging percentage (.309), and last in the league in on-base percentage (.325).

Because of COVID-19’s impact on rosters, pitching staffs are deeper this season. Pitchers are fresher and throwing harder. As O’Connor pointed out, a few UVa hitters have made solid contact but have been unlucky at the plate through two weekends.

But he’d still like to see the Hoos find ways to take better advantage when they have a chance to put runs on the board.

“Because your opportunities don’t happen very often, you’ve got to be a little bit more opportunistic,” O’Connor said.

The Cavaliers fell to 4-3 on the season by dropping two of three in Chapel Hill. As a result, they slipped a few spots in the new national polls Monday morning.

UVa dropped four spots to No. 16 in the country in the latest D1Baseball Top 25. Baseball America dropped the Wahoos six spots, from No. 2 to No. 8. After winning the weekend series, UNC checked into both rankings for the first time, at No. 25 on D1Baseball and No. 17 in the Baseball America poll.

Florida State fell out of both top 25 rankings after getting swept at home by Pitt to open ACC play. The Wahoos will travel to Tallahassee this weekend.

Sunday’s game marked the first time in the UVa career of Chris Newell that he watched a game from the dugout. The preseason All-American had been struggling at the plate through two weekends but O’Connor revealed on Monday that Newell was out of the lineup for an off-the-field reason.

“He violated a team policy,” the head coach disclosed, “so he was not going to play in yesterday’s game, unfortunately.”

Junior Jimmy Sullivan went 0-for-4 in his first start of the season and his first career start in center field. It was the first time someone other than Newell started in center for the Cavaliers since Cam Simmons against Miami at the ACC Tournament, in the final game of the 2019 season.

Newell is hitting just .143 on the season, though all three of his hits are for extra bases, including a monstrous grand slam off the batter’s eye at Disharoon Park in last Tuesday’s win against VMI. He’s also tied for the team lead with five RBI.

He went hitless in five at-bats in the first two games in Chapel Hill, with two strikeouts, a walk, and an RBI groundout.

Newell got off to a similar slow start as a freshman last year, starting the season just 1-for-11 through five games. But by the time the season abruptly ended 13 game later, he had raised his batting average to a team-best .407, and he was also leading the Wahoos in RBI (20), stolen bases (8) and on-base percentage (.545).

O’Connor said Newell would be eligible to play in Tuesday’s game at home against George Washington.

Christian Hlinka traveled back to Charlottesville with his teammates on Sunday evening. But that’s the only update O’Connor had on the outfielder, who was forced to leave Sunday’s game in the sixth inning after a collision at second base with UNC shortstop Danny Serretti on a double-play ball.

“He took a pretty hard hit to the head,” O’Connor said Monday. “So we’re continuing to monitor him.”

Hlinka was sliding into the bag when his head hit Serretti’s shin, as the shortstop was throwing to first base to complete a 6-3 double play that retired the side in the sixth. Both players stayed down for a few minutes. Serretti was able to eventually walk off on his own; Hlinka was helped to the UVa dugout.

“Their shortstop, rather than avoiding him and coming out of the way, he tried to go right over the top of him, and it was a tough collision,” O’Connor said, adding that he felt it was a clean play at the bag. “Unfortunate, but those are the things that happen sometimes.”

Hlinka made his second start of the season at designated hitter on Sunday. Before the collision, he had picked up his first two hits of the year, including a two-out RBI single in the fourth inning that gave the Wahoos their first lead of the weekend. Tate Ballestero finished the game as the Cavaliers’ DH.

Before Thursday’s ACC opener in Chapel Hill, O’Connor sent a text message to an old rival.

Following last year’s abbreviated season, Mike Fox retired after 22 seasons in the Tar Heels’ dugout. Longtime UNC assistant Scott Forbes, in his first year as the program’s new head coach, was waiting at home plate to exchange lineups this weekend.

O’Connor said he texted Fox on Thursday morning to “let him know I was thinking about him. I always admired the work he did at North Carolina, and the program he built there.”

O’Connor is now in his 18th season as the Cavaliers’ head coach. Among ACC coaches, only Georgia Tech’s Danny Hall (28th season) and NC State’s Elliott Avent (25th season) have been at their current schools for longer stints.

He will get another reminder of the league’s changing of the guard this weekend at Florida State. UVa last faced the Seminoles in Charlottesville in 2019, when Mike Martin was in the midst of his 40th and final season as head coach at FSU.

After 22 seasons on his father’s staff, Mike Martin, Jr., is now in his second year coaching the Seminoles.

“It’ll be a little bit different going down to Tallahassee,” O’Connor admitted. “We’ve been going there for 17 years, and to not have No. 11 in the dugout will be different. But things change.”

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