Make it 11 straight wins for the No. 6 UNC baseball team, as the Tar Heels—led by sophomore starting pitcher JB Bukauskas—shutout the Pittsburgh Panthers 4-0 at Boshamer Stadium on Saturday.
Bukauskas struck out a career-high 11 batters across seven innings while junior center fielder Tyler Ramirez went 3-for-4 with a homer and three RBIs—bringing the Tar Heels to 12-1 in 2016, while dropping Pittsburgh to 6-6.
Ramirez’s deep blast over the right field wall in the third extended UNC’s lead to four runs and gave fans all the entertainment they would need–while his two-run single in the first gave Bukauskas (2-0) all the wiggle room he would need.
Tyler Ramirez went 3-for-4 with a HR and 3 RBI on Saturday. (Joe Bray/ UNC Athletics)
“It’s great when you score in the first inning,” Bukauskas said after the game. “It makes you feel like you’ve got a little cushion to work with when you go out there.
“Obviously our team’s been swinging the bat really well,” he continued. “It’s just a great feeling knowing [I] don’t have to be absolutely perfect and [we] can still win the game.”
Although he said he wasn’t able to watch much video of the Pittsburgh lineup before his start, Bukauskas said he received some good advice from UNC’s Friday night starter, Zac Gallen—a team captain who struck out eight hitters in eight innings the night before.
Whatever advice he received from Gallen clearly worked to his advantage.
Bukauskas may not have been perfect on Saturday, but he was definitely good enough to earn some high praise from the team’s head coach, Mike Fox.
“That might be JB’s best performance as a Tar Heel,” Fox said. “He had some good outings for us last year, but that’s about as complete a game as we’ve seen him throw. I thought just right out of the gate he was under control.
“Of course he’s got that good fastball,” the coach added. “But boy his breaking ball got him some swings and misses, and got him out of trouble some today.”
The 11-game win streak is the longest UNC has put together since it won 14 in a row back in 2013—a year they finished by barely missing out on a national championship after being hailed as the top team in America throughout the season.
Ramirez (left) and lead-off man Brian Miller exchange fist bumps. (Joe Bray/ UNC Athletics)
Obviously this young bunch doesn’t have any surefire first-round draft picks or superstars like the 2013 team did, but it hasn’t needed them so far.
The players universally seem to speak of the locker room as one of the tightest they’ve ever been a part of. Fox has repeatedly said how much he enjoys coaching this team, but is still waiting to see how it handles adversity.
For now, though, he’ll just enjoy the wins.
“We haven’t seen a lot of distress or anything, so this team’s enjoying playing right now,” he said. “We’re getting some breaks. The ball’s falling in for us, and the other team’s hitting the ball at us.
“How much of that’s us and how much of that’s karma and part of the game—I don’t know,” Fox continued. “But right now we’ll take it.”
Up Next:
UNC will go for the sweep of Pittsburgh on Sunday, with first pitch scheduled for noon. That is a change to the original schedule. Rain in the forecast moved the game up from what was supposed to be a 1 p.m. start.
Game Notes:
- Ramirez is hitting .442 through UNC’s first 13 games, good enough for the team lead. He is one of three players (Brian Miller, Eli Sutherland) batting over .400 for the Tar Heels.
- The seven innings by Bukauskas was the second longest outing of his young career. He threw 8.1 innings in a win at Clemson last year.
- Juniors Adam Pate and Tyler Lynn, the UNC right fielder and left fielder, each had a pair of hits.
- Freshman infielder Kyle Datres drove Pate in with an RBI groundout in the third–the at-bat directly preceding Ramirez’s home run.
