Louisville baseball set to begin 2020 season
Louisville baseball is set to begin the 2020 season next week with a three-game series against Ole Miss in Oxford. The Cardinals are ranked atop three preseason nation polls and were voted as the preseason favorite in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
After reaching the College World Series last season, Louisville received 13 of 14 first-place votes to win the Atlantic Division in the ACC. The Cardinals have won the Atlantic Division four of the five seasons since joining the league.
Pitcher Reid Detmers was a first-team All-America selection by D1Baseball while junior Michael Kirian and sophomore Alex Binelas were named the second team.
Detmer, a junior left-hander, went 13-4 with a 2.78 ERA last season. Binelas hit .291 with 14 home runs and 59 RBIs as a freshman. Kirian made a team-high 26 relief appearances with a 1.69 ERA.
Heading into his 14 season as Louisville’s head coach, Dan McDonnell said it’s an exciting time of the year. Louisville visited the Dominican Republic in the offseason to compete against professional players after reaching the College World Series for the fifth time.
“We did a lot of great things, you try to keep that momentum going,” McDonnell said. “We had a good fall, we had great weather. We had a chance to go to the Dominican Republic, awesome trip, it did wonders for us.”
McDonnell said the team isn’t 100 percent healthy, but he feels good about the talent and depth on the roster. He didn’t share a starting lineup in the preseason press conference because he expects a multitude of players to get opportunities.
“As I told the players at practice, I’m not a big fan of announcing the starting lineup,” McDonnell said. “As I looked in the past, it’s amazing, there are players you don’t talk about as much in this press conference, three weeks later, they are in the lineup every day, they’re freshman All-Americans.”
Louisville will use the first 10 to 15 games to give different players opportunities to play. McDonnell said the players that start in the opening series earned the chance to play first.
“I feel good about our depth because I know there are several guys that have the right and earned the opportunity to get some at bats, play the field and get on the mound, help us get better as a club,” McDonnell said.