Grant Donahue kicked the dirt around the pitcher’s mound after walking a batter to load the bases with one out in the first inning on Saturday afternoon against North Carolina. Maybe it was in frustration, maybe it was to get better footing on the mound.
Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. Before he could set to face the next batter, head coach Brian O’Connor was coming out to the mound to end Donahue’s day, one out and only minutes after it started. Donahue waited for O’Connor behind the mound, looking in the direction of the outfield before giving up the ball to his skipper.
It was evident in that moment what’s becoming clearer and clearer by the week. Virginia’s lack of reliable pitching depth is a problem that is not going away.
“I’m sure,” O’Connor said when asked postgame if Donahue’s start would make him re-think his Sunday pitching options. “I’m not quite sure what that is. We’ll continue to think about it and decide what the right thing to do is.”
There’s no easy answer for finding a Sunday starting pitcher. If there was, O’Connor would have had it on Saturday night. Or maybe Donahue would have returned to the weekday starting role or long relief option that he’d harnessed early in the season.
An injury to Evan Sperling — with no timetable for return — was certainly what forced UVa’s hand in the first place. The junior hurler was a reliable Sunday option, but he’s far from the only reason for these struggles.
Another aspect relates to an earlier suspension of Bobby Nicholson. The righty was dominating his weekday starts, but struggled in his first Sunday opportunity at Miami. He was supposed to pitch at Pittsburgh the weekend after, but was suspended for an undisclosed violation of team rules. He hasn’t been available to the media since that time. Nicholson will start Tuesday night's home game against George Washington.
Then there’s Griff McGarry. It’s true, he’s a freshman, and inherently unpredictable. But he also got the start in the home opener. It’s clear that UVa had higher hopes for McGarry’s ability to immediately impact the team. But he’s pitched 7 1/3 innings and allowed 12 runs, walked 12, thrown three wild pitches and hit two batters. At this point, he’s a liability to enter games, and that hurts the depth UVa has.
“Being at this level of baseball for 25 years, I’ve seen this many, many times with first-year pitchers,” O’Connor said after McGarry’s last appearance on March 28. “They’ve got really good stuff, they just don’t know how yet to put it together to throw enough strikes. Then when they do, it gets hit. … Griff McGarry is going to be a great pitcher in our program.”
Prior to the season, UVa worked out Bennett Sousa as a starter, but he started the year as the team’s closer.
After pitching on Friday, O’Connor said the long-term plan, following this season, is to have reliever Andrew Abbott become a starter. But right now, it doesn’t make sense to have either him or Sousa move there. They’re Virginia’s two most relied-upon relievers. Moving them out of the bullpen would leave a major hole in that spot.
Then there’s the injury to Chesdin Harrington, which O’Connor suggested would be minor at first, but has grown into something that appears could jeopardize his whole season. Noah Murdock came back last week from Tommy John surgery, but it will be a while before he can throw starter-level pitch totals.
O’Connor said after Nicholson’s start against Radford last Wednesday that he needed to see better control from his sophomore pitcher, and that’s a fair assessment. But it’s also true that Nicholson has proven himself as the third most capable and reliable starter currently available to pitch.
Having multiple games a week with the starting pitcher listed as TBA is not the mark of success. There’s Derek Casey and Daniel Lynch that have been the immovable rocks of the Friday-Saturday portion of the rotation. But outside of that, UVa is running out of time in its quest to find a third weekend starter.
“We’ve got confidence in everybody that’s on the staff,” said redshirt junior pitcher Riley Wilson. “We wouldn’t be rolling Grant or whoever it may be out there if we didn’t have confidence in him. The changes that need to be made will be made.”
As a pitching staff, Virginia’s ERA is 3.99. Pitching has been a weak point for the Cavaliers the past three seasons. In both 2016 and ‘17, the team ERA was over 4.00. It was 3.49 during the Cavaliers’ 2015 national championship season. It was 2.23 in 2014, when the team made the College World Series finals. Those past two seasons are the only seasons in O’Connor’s 14 full seasons as the program’s leader that the team has had a collective ERA north of four. This season is in jeopardy of being the third straight.
The issue that Virginia has is that it does not have a reliable starting pitcher for its Sunday afternoons. But really, that issue is related to all the other problems that this pitching staff has faced this season, and there might not by many solutions to fix it.