Stay Alive: Virginia Baseball Faces Elimination in Regional Tournament

It is do or die time for Virginia Baseball.

After losing 15-7 last night against Jacksonville State, UVA's NCAA Tournament appearance is in danger of being cut short. The Cavaliers are going to enter today's game as the underdog against the Golden Eagles, who were shockingly upset yesterday against Little Rock, 7-4.

It may not apply to Virginia directly here, but being an underdog has worked out well so far in this tournament. I mentioned the 1 vs 4 upset in the Hattiesburg regional, but Florida State, Auburn, and UCLA also went down. Just because they are the underdog in this game, UVA has a shot to take down Southern Miss, but they are going to have to flip the script completely from last night.

Can they do that?

Uphill battle

I think that it is going to be a major uphill battle today for UVA, but they are a more talented team than Little Rock and the Trojans were able to take down Southern Miss last night.

UVA threw out their best pitcher yesterday, Henry Zatkowski, and it did not go well. Zatkowski gave up seven earned runs on eight hits and the bullpen was not much better. Kevin Jaxel and Lucas Hartman gave up five combined earned runs as the first relievers out of the bullpen for UVA last night. The Cavaliers threw their best guys at the Gamecocks last night and it resulted in them giving up 15-7.

Kyle Johnson (1-3, 5.86 ERA) is going to be on the mound today for the Hoos and I think that Virginia is going to need his best performance of the season today and for him to go deep into the game. Southern Miss does not have a Georgia Tech or Georgia level of offense, but it is plenty good to take advantage of this UVA pitching staff, which is the weakest in the regional.

If the pitching does not have an adequate performance today, is there any way that the Cavaliers offense can find a way to win a shootout? In their last two games (Georgia Tech and Jacksvonville State), UVA has averaged 8.5 runs per game and lost both while being outscored 31-17.

The pitching has been that bad.

Theoretically, UVA's offense is capable of winning a shootout, but they have to find a way to get going sooner. Virginia scored seven runs last night, but did not score until the bottom of the 5th inning and by that point, they were already trailing 9-0. Virginia did cut it to 10-5 heading into the 7th, but then the pitching could not keep Jacksonville State off the board.

It has been an up and down season for Chris Pollard (who was ejected last night) and Virginia. They started the year hot and looked like a regional host for the first portion of the season, but the past month has not seen a lot of highlights for the Hoos.

They can reverse that today with a strong performance in a win or go home scenario.

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