West Virginia hosted Pitt in the Backyard Brawl on Wednesday night as they looked to take game two of their three-game season series. It would be a complete team effort to accomplish that feat, as the Mountaineers took down their rival 10-0 in seven innings.
As the Mountaineers (33-11) increased their winning streak to nine games on Wednesday, it used a formula they have relied on heavily in the past week. West Virginia’s pitchers of Carson Estridge and Gavin Van Kempen held Pitt (20-22) scoreless, while the Mountaineer offense — once again led by JJ Wetherholt — gave their pitching staff more than enough run support.
“This atmosphere has just got our guys so energized. We literally didn’t. give away an at-bat the entire day today,” West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey said.
West Virginia was rolling from the start. Estridge (3-0) struck out the side while working around a pair of hits in the top of the first, before Wetherholt got things going offensively. Wetherholt singled before stealing second and advancing to third on an error. Landon Wallace would then drive him in putting WVU ahead 1-0.
That would be all the run support Estridge would need, but not what he would get.
In the second Caleb McNeely hit a home run to left, before West Virginia scored two more in the third. It was again Wetherholt who singled before advancing to third on the throw. With runners on second and third, Wallace would single again to score Tevin Tucker and then Wetherholt would score on a groundout from Braden Barry.
Barry went 2-for-4 on the evening and extended his hitting streak to six games, while also adding a pair of RBI on the evening.
“Barry’s a guy that goes up and down,” Mazey said. “When he’s seeing it well that’s where you want him, right in the middle of the lineup.”
The Mountaineers added three more in the fourth, courtesy of Wetherholt. Logan Suave singled, before Tevin Tucker was hit in the head with a pitch. On the very next pitch, Wetherholt hit a three-run home run over the wall in left field, to put West Virginia ahead 7-0.
“When it happened, in my head I was like, oh it’d be super cool — this guy just hit my boy — if I just hit a nuke. That’d be awesome.”
Wetherholt did hit his team-leading 12th home run of the season, while going 3-for-4 at the plate and scoring three more runs on the night.
Estridge made his first collegiate start against Pitt on Apr. 19 in the first edition of the Backyard Brawl. In that game he allowed one run on four hits, while striking out three across 3.2 innings of work.
Tonight, he would pitch 4.0 scoreless innings, striking out seven, while also working around runners on the corners with no outs in the fourth inning.
“He’s kind of tricky. He doesn’t throw as hard as the other guys, but it’s a fastball that’s a little bit harder to hit. We just got to get his endurance up,” Mazey said of the freshman. “He’s just now catching his groove, I think. Four innings was about the max for him. He went out there and struck a lot of guys up and threw up zeroes.”
Estridge’s night finished with him giving up three hits, one walk, while throwing 63 pitches.
“Feels really good to be able to come out here and just kind of do my thing and be able to get those seven strikeouts,” Estridge said.
Fellow freshman Gavin Van Kempen would come in relief of Estridge and have the same success against the Panthers. Van Kempen threw 3.0 innings, allowing one run, walked one batter, and struck out three.
West Virignia ended the game in the seventh inning off the bat of Ellis Garcia. McNeely walked to lead off the inning before Garcia doubled down the left field line to put the game beyond the 10-run mark.
“With the rain, I didn’t want to get into a game like this and have the rain come in and have everybody sit for an hour and have to finish,” Mazey said of putting the run-rule in effect. “This is one of the only times I think it made sense to do it that way.”
Out of Pitt’s four pitchers, none of them were able to cool down WVU’s offense. Starter Erubiel Candelario (2-2) pitched the first 2.2 innings and allowed four runs on five hits. Matthew Fernandez replaced him and allowed three runs of his own in just 1.1 innings out of the bullpen.
In all, Pitt’s pitching staff allowed 11 hits and walked four batters and struck out six.
West Virginia will keep their positive momentum heading into the weekend. The Mountaineers welcomed 4,070 fans to Monongalia County Ballpark this weekend and will look to get their win streak to double-digits against Oklahoma this weekend.
