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On Wednesday, West Virginia will renew their rivalry in the Backyard Brawl with Pitt. Only this time, they will be doing it in the footsteps of some of the greatest to ever play the game of baseball.
PNC Park in Pittsburgh is known by many as one of the most beautiful ballparks in all of baseball. On Wednesday, it will be the site of the Backyard Brawl, as Pitt and West Virginia are set to play in the Backyard Brawl.
“It’s pretty cool for our guys to go out, stand in the same batter’s box as some of the greatest players who’ve ever lived,” West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey said. “Who knows if Mike Trout or Tony (Gwynn) or I don’t know who’s played at PNC. Soto from the Nationals; our left-handed hitters are going to get to stand in his footsteps so to speak.”
Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals is exactly who was in that batter’s box over the weekend. The Nationals played the Pittsburgh Pirates in a four-game series, and Soto, who is thought of as one of the best hitters in baseball, homered over the weekend, hitting it into the Allegheny River past right field.
The Mountaineers come into this matchup after playing No. 3 Oklahoma State to the wire this past weekend. The Mountaineers fell 2-1 on Friday, before winning 5-2 on Saturday, and then fell 13-3 on Sunday in the series finale.
Mazey said he felt his team’s performance this weekend answered a lot of questions he had before this weekend.
“We had played well in the first two conference weekends and I knew how good this team was. I actually thought the other two teams we played were down a little bit,” Mazey said. “And I was interested to see how we competed against a team that I think is legitimately a top ten team and I was very pleased by the way we played against them. If you came to the first two games and you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t know which team was in the top ten and which team was out of the top ten.”
The Backyard Brawl will be in their second of three meetings this season between Pitt and West Virginia, with Pitt winning the first matchup 9-6, just three weeks ago.
This game returns to PNC Park for the first time since 2019, when the Mountaineers won 9-4. First pitch for West Virginia and Pitt is set for 1 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
Photo from WVU Athletics
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