UNC Baseball: Feast and Famine

Consider this my formal apology. I should have known better, and I apologize. I’m usually so careful and thoughtful in my speech and in my writing, and for me to tempt fate as I did earlier this week is nigh inexcusable. I’ve always known the baseball gods were pernicious; always known that any unfounded bravado could lead the prideful down a bitter path, and yet I did what I did.

Earlier this week, I wrote a piece celebrating home runs. I know it was foolish, but I thought that by framing it as admiring the handiwork of the Heels in a blowout win over the Blue Devils, I could write a piece extolling the many virtues of a moonshot without andgering the baseball Powers That Be; that I could crow without it sounding like I was crowing. This, as yesterday so emphatically taught us, was hubris.

Carolina hit three home runs in the fifth inning of the game I so foolishly described. The Heels touched the plate 21 times in total, a complete and utter atomizing of the Blue Devil pitching staff that I so naïvely thought was safe to write about.

Yesterday, the Heels managed one home run in a double-header against the Panthers of Pitt. I’ve always been a little superstitious, even keeping a mental tally of which branded apparel has the best record (commonly referred to as “juju”). With that being said, I should have known better than to draw the attention of the baseball gods to the offensive explosion. That’s why this piece is meant to be an apology; hopefully, this public penance will be enough to move the needle in favor of the Heels in the cosmic sense, and the scoring can begin again in this afternoon’s formality.

It’s possible that Pitt’s pitching was just that much better than that of the Blue Devils, sure; it’s also possible that Carolina was simply tired from scoring so many times on the rival team. All that we can say for sure is that the Heels’ offense was only able to muster two runs apiece in each of yesterday’s games; not even half of the explosive aforementioned fifth inning. A disappointing Saturday dropped the team from Chapel Hill below .500 in conference play, putting them squarely in the chasing half of the Coastal standings.

For that, my friends, I must apologize. But don’t worry, the ball cap I’ll be wearing for today’s game is a rousing 7-2; we’re in good hands.

Go Heels!