What went wrong for Notre Dame baseball in getting swept by Duke?
To answer the question in the headline: just about everything.
Pitching? Notre Dame gave up 25 runs. Hitting? The Irish only scored 10. Fielding? Five errors on the weekend, extremely bad form for a team that went into the weekend as one of the five best in the country in fielding percentage. It all amounted to the most disappointing weekend of the season for a group of guys who have aspirations of playing deep into the month of June.
Barring something completely unforeseen — or, if they just keep playing like they did this weekend — the Blue Devils (16-20, 6-12 ACC) aren’t going to be playing well into the postseason. That’s what has to make the sweep all the more infuriating for head coach Link Jarrett. Notre Dame (21-8, 8-7) had won nine straight games. Now the Irish head back to South Bend having lost three in a row to one of the ACC’s worst teams.
PROMOTION: Sign up for just $1 for your first year at Blue & Gold
The tone was set from the first three innings of the series. Duke scored in all three of those frames to take a 6-0 lead in Game 1. Senior Will Mercer couldn’t get out of the first inning of his first start of the season. That set the script for a bullpen game for Notre Dame, and the Irish weren’t up to the task. Six different pitchers including Mercer allowed at least two earned runs. Duke scored seven runs in the eighth to put the finishing touches on a 15-5 blowout win.
Notre Dame football
• Hey Horka! Brian Kelly, Dante Moore, 2024 QBs, NIL and Notre Dame football transfers
Sixth-year senior ace John Michael Bertrand didn’t have his best stuff Friday, but he battled. He gave up the most hits (nine) he has all season, but he still got the Irish through six innings having only allowed two earned runs. Senior Alex Rao was effective in relief, completing more than four innings, but he stumbled in the 11th. And when he turned the game over to senior Aidan Tyrell with one on and one out, Tyrell let the game go on just seven pitches. He hit the first battered he faced and let the second single. Notre Dame lost 4-3.
Graduate senior Austin Temple let Duke get out to an early lead again Saturday. The Blue Devils worked a run across in the bottom of the first. He allowed three-straight singles to start the fourth, and he was yanked for graduate senior Ryan McLinskey — the only pitcher to not allow an earned run in Thursday’s game. That wasn’t the case Saturday. He gave up a two-run homer, and suddenly Duke had a 4-0 lead. He gave up another run in the fifth, and Tyrell gave one up in the sixth. 6-0 Duke.
It’s concerning when such veteran pitchers — the ones Jarrett knew he’d be relying on way before the season began — are the ones giving up runs in bunches. It’s just as concerning to see what the Irish offense did — or didn’t do — throughout the series.
Notre Dame did not score until the ninth inning Saturday. Before then, the only three hits in the batting order came from the No. 8 and No. 9 hitters. The Irish were 5-of-29 in leadoff situations in the three games. They were 3-of-18 with runners in scoring position. They struck out more than twice as many times as they collected hits, 39 to 18. As bad as the pitching was, it was an incredibly poor performance at the plate.
So, to answer the headline question one more time: everything.
