UNC Breaks Out Brooms, Sweeps Pittsburgh
The Tar Heels swept their opening ACC opponent for the first time since 2013
Ever since he became North Carolina’s head coach in the fall of 2020, Scott Forbes has made a point of stressing the importance of Sundays, consistently the toughest days of the week each season.
With every Sunday comes the opportunity to win a rubber game, avoid a sweep or pull one off, he notes. And in the case of the 2022 Tar Heels, they’ve made an early habit of breaking out the brooms, as they did once again this weekend.
Coming off a 7-4 win on Friday and a 4-3 walk-off victory on Saturday, UNC took care of business Sunday against Pittsburgh, outscoring the Panthers 8-0 over the final four innings en route to a 9-2 win and their third sweep this season. As impressive as all three have been, this weekend’s was perhaps the most notable, as it marked the Tar Heels’ first against their opening ACC opponent since 2013.
“That just tells you all you need to know about our league in the last nine years, really, because we’ve been pretty good,” Forbes said. “(The 2020 season) got cut short, but we went to Omaha in ’18, we’ve been national seeds. To hear that stat is just a credit to the ACC and how much better it’s gotten top to bottom. It makes me feel good about what I tell our guys about how hard it is to sweep. When you have that chance, you’ve got to take advantage of it.”
So far, UNC has, and that’s a significant reason why the team is off to a 14-2 start, its best since 2016, when the Tar Heels also started 14-2. It’s also a sign of the growth the team has made since last season, when it swept three of its 13 series.
“We joke with the freshmen because they think sweeps come natural, but they don’t, they’re really hard to get,” Tomas Frick said. “We feel good. We know we’ve got a lot more work to do – definitely on the defensive side. We haven’t played our best baseball yet, and we know that. So we’re just going to keep working every day and hopefully get there soon.”
Castagnozzi keeps crushing
With the score tied at 3 in the bottom of the ninth Saturday, Johnny Castagnozzi came to the plate with one out and quickly fell behind 0-2. The sophomore laid off the next three pitches – including an elevated 0-2 fastball – to work the count full, then took a mighty swing, driving Hayden Summers’ next pitch toward right-center.
Off the bat, Castagnozzi said he wasn’t sure if the ball would clear the fence, not with the wind gusting between 20-30 mph. But sure enough, it did, giving UNC its third walk-off win in nine days and Castagnozzi his first walk-off hit since Little League.
“I knew he threw a lot of fastballs,” Castagnozzi said. “I was just trying to be short to it. He gave me one up in the zone, and I just stayed on top of it. I hit it good – I didn’t know if it was going to go out, but it ended up going over that wall out there. It was pretty sick.”
Castagnozzi’s walk-off was the biggest highlight from a weekend in which he went 6-for-13 with three multi-hit games and two home runs – the other being a solo blast that tied Sunday’s game at 2 in the sixth inning. It also provided the latest – if not the best – evidence yet of his improved approach at the plate.
“Last year, he’s out if you throw him anything in the vicinity that’s a ball,” Forbes said. “That’s the difference in Johnny. We’ve been talking to our other hitters about how you can learn a lot from Johnny. He’s taking his lower half out of it with two strikes, he’s taken some of his best swings with two strikes. When it got back to 3-2, I felt really good about it. In my mind, I was just thinking, ‘Get a good pitch to hit, because he could drive this pitch.’ And he got one.”
Through 16 games, Castagnozzi is slashing .426/.544/.704 with eight multi-hit games, five more than he had in 42 games last season. His four home runs are also already as many as he had as a freshman.
Horvath, Frick step up
Castagnozzi wasn’t the only sophomore who came up big for the Tar Heels against the Panthers, as Mac Horvath and Frick put together critical at-bats Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
For five innings Saturday, Pittsburgh starter Logan Evans held UNC scoreless, giving up three hits and a walk while striking out seven. But with two outs and two runners on in the sixth, Horvath hit a 1-0 offering over the left-field wall, tying the score at 3. The home run – Horvath’s second of the season – left his bat at 103 mph and had a launch angle of 39 degrees, per UNC’s analytics team. It also led to Evans’ removal moments later.
Although he’s put together some good at-bats, Horvath is slashing just .204/.368/.333 this season. That, however, hasn’t kept him from delivering some clutch hits, such as his walk-off single against Coastal Carolina on March 4 and Saturday’s homer.
“Mac can hit a heater; he can hit anybody’s heater,” Forbes said. “It’s just Mac going out of the zone, just pressing (that’s hurt him). He can match up against anybody. That’s the difference between Mac this year and Mac last year. He’s still getting on base. We’ve put him down in the eight hole to distribute some of the lefties, but that dude could be hitting in the leadoff spot or the three hole. So that was really good to see from him.”
While Horvath has started off slow, Frick has been among the Tar Heels’ best hitters. But as he walked to the plate with two outs, two runners on and the score tied at 2 in the seventh Sunday, he was 0 for his last 12. Last season, that might have caused him to press and chase some pitches outside of the strike zone. But after falling behind 0-2, he hit a two-run double into right that gave UNC the lead for good.
Frick picked up another RBI on an eighth-inning single, bringing his season total to 15. He recorded 16 RBIs in 53 games last season.
“It’s looked like he’s slowed everything down, and that goes a long way,” Angel Zarate said. “No matter what count it is, he looks calm and confident in there. That’s the biggest thing. He could agree with me that a bunch of his at-bats last year, if he fell behind, most of the time he thought he was out, but this year, in any count that he’s been in, I think everybody on the team knows, ‘Alright, Frick can still do some damage here.’”
A successful swap
From the moment the season started, Forbes and his staff discussed the possibility of moving Shaddon Peavyhouse from the weekend rotation to the bullpen and how they felt that could help the bullpen become one of the best the program has had. Despite that, with Peavyhouse pitching fairly well and Connor Bovair working through some adjustments, they kept Peavyhouse in the Sunday role for the first three weekends.
But with Bovair improving with each outing and Peavyhouse throwing just 38 pitches in his start on March 6 against Coastal Carolina, the staff decided to give Peavyhouse a look out of the bullpen at Liberty last Tuesday. The righty showed just how good he can be as a reliever in striking out three and walking one over 1 2/3 scoreless innings, and that was enough to prompt the coaches to move him to the bullpen and Bovair to the Sunday spot ahead of this weekend – two moves that paid off against the Panthers.
With two outs, two runners on and the score tied at 3 in the top of the ninth Saturday, the Tar Heels called on Peavyhouse to face Ron Washington Jr. Peavyhouse quickly got ahead 0-2, and two pitches later, he got the Pittsburgh slugger to strike out swinging on a slider off the plate, setting the stage for Castagnozzi’s walk-off.
In talking about Peavyhouse’s move to the bullpen Thursday, Forbes said he thought it would allow his fastball to play up and help his slider be more consistent, a sentiment that Peavyhouse echoed Saturday.
“I told Coach (Bryant) Gaines and Coach (Jesse Wierzbicki) after the game that my stuff is definitely a little bit sharper,” Peavyhouse said. “I can come out and give everything max effort; I don’t have to worry about going late in the game and all that. I’m really happy with the decision that they made. I think it’s going to be better off for myself and the team.”
As if Peavyhouse’s performance wasn’t enough to support the staff’s decision, Bovair turned in a strong outing in his first weekend start Sunday, giving up two runs on four hits and two walks while striking out four over five innings. That the righty put such a start together after throwing 46 pitches in his start against Liberty last Tuesday offers plenty of optimism for him as a Sunday starter.
“To give us five innings and have solid stuff is a credit to how hard he works,” Forbes. “I’m really looking forward to seeing him on a full week’s rest in that role. I thought our bullpen complemented him well. Early on, I thought his fastball was up in the zone. I thought he was able to equalize their hitters with his off-speed, and he’s got four pitches – which is good as a starter. If you don’t have your fastball, you can throw something else. Really, the only damage was the hit-and-run home run, and it just kind of happened. Other than that, I thought he was really good.”
Schaeffer looking for edge
For the third time in four starts this season, Brandon Schaeffer ran into some trouble early, as Pittsburgh scored two runs on four hits and a walk over the first two innings Friday. But unlike his starts against Seton Hall and Coastal Carolina, in which he settled in and allowed little to no traffic on the bases the rest of the way, the left-hander never quite harnessed his stuff.
Schaeffer ultimately surrendered 10 hits – the most allowed by a UNC pitcher since Austin Bergner gave up 11 at Notre Dame on April 13, 2019 – and four runs (three earned) in 5 1/3 innings. That he pitched into the sixth on a day in which he didn’t have his best stuff is “a credit of how good he can be,” Forbes said, adding that he hopes the outing is something Schaeffer can learn from.
“I think the biggest thing with Brandon is learning he’s got to be more aggressive early,” Forbes said. “He gets ticked off if something happens and then he pitches with that little bit of an edge. I explained to him (Friday) that you have to pitch with that edge even more so in the ACC. You don’t have to be talking to yourself on the mound like Max Scherzer, but you almost have to. That’s how you have to pitch.”
Defensive troubles continue
The Tar Heels’ defensive struggles once again reared their ugly head this weekend, as they made four errors and a few lapses that didn't show up in the box score.
The two most costly errors came in the fifth inning Saturday, as Castagnozzi booted a groundball at second base that allowed the leadoff batter to reach and then dropped a fly ball that got caught up in the wind, allowing two runs to score.
On the season, UNC has posted a .964 fielding percentage. The most surprising part about the defensive issues is who has been in the middle of them, as Castagnozzi – who committed two errors on 147 chances last season – has already made four errors and Danny Serretti has matched his total from the last two seasons combined (eight).
“Obviously, unacceptable,” Serretti said. “Can’t happen. I’ve got to play better defensively. I know I can, I know I will. But at the end of the day, it’s just getting the work in pregame, practice, and I’ll turn it around defensively.”
Still streaking
In going 3-for-4 Sunday to wrap up a tremendous weekend in which he went 8-for-13 with four RBIs and two walks, Angel Zarate extended his on-base streak to 39 games, dating back to April 4, 2021. That matches his longest career on-base streak, which is also the second longest by a Tar Heel since 1999. Logan Warmoth’s 41-game streak between the 2016 and 2017 seasons is the longest in that span.
“I don’t like to think about it as much,” Zarate said. “I just go out there and my game plan is the same every time – just have attainable goals, and by attainable goals I mean making sure I’m on time for every pitch, making sure I get a good swing off. I just try to slow the game down as much as possible. If I do that, I can look at four balls for a walk and get on or give myself a chance to get a hit. I can’t control getting a hit or not, but I can control being on time and getting a good swing off. Just sticking to my game plan is crucial.”
What’s next?
The Tar Heels will continue their five-game homestand with a pair of midweek games against VMI and Richmond on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. Both games are scheduled for 4 p.m.
Picked to finish seventh in the Southern Conference preseason coaches poll, VMI (8-7) split a doubleheader against Lehigh on Friday. Richmond (10-4) – which was picked to finish eighth in the Atlantic 10 preseason coaches poll – took two of three games from Holy Cross this weekend.