April 27, 2008

By Adam Lucas

In case you'd forgotten, Sunday afternoon at the USA Baseball training facility was about reminding everyone that for all its complexities, for all its stats and charts and science, baseball is ultimately a very simple game. And sometimes, all the statistics in the world aren't equal to one gut feeling, because sometimes the very best moves are the ones that aren't made.

Carolina and Florida State played 28 innings this weekend. The Tar Heels led for exactly one of those innings. And yet it's Mike Fox's team that goes into a 10-day exam break thrilled to have taken two out of three games thanks to a weekend finale that was finally played to the level of these two national contenders after two blowouts to open the series.

There's a simple reason why a cottage industry has developed around the science of baseball, why books are written about how to explain the game: it's because of games like Sunday, which made very little sense. The 2-1 Carolina win featured FSU pitcher Elih Villanueva no-hitting the Tar Heels through six innings, throwing the finest game of the season against UNC, and being tagged with the loss. It included four Tar Heel double plays...and three Tar Heel errors. It included the best-hitting team in the country, thunderous FSU, failing to score a single earned run against the best pitching staff in the nation.

Heck, it even had a pinch-runner for a pinch-runner. What else do you want? Surely, in all this madness, there must be a simple mathematical explanation, right?

"It's a crazy game," Fox had said earlier in the weekend, after he watched his team score 11 runs in the eighth inning of Friday night's win. It is indeed, and almost 11,000 people came to Cary over the weekend to witness it first-hand.

As Fox is fond of saying, the players play the game. And so it was players like Matt Harvey, who considering the circumstances had the best start of his young career, Brian Moran and Rob Wooten, who were stellar in relief, Chad Flack, who made a gem of a defensive play on senior day, and Kyle Seager, who tied the score in the seventh with an RBI single and defensively was a part of three of Carolina's four critical double plays, who enabled the Tar Heels to make it to the tenth inning.

"What a great feeling," Wooten said on the field after Sunday's win. "What a great atmosphere...This team never quits."

Ultimately, though, the game hinged on Carolina's tenth-year head coach standing in the third base coaches' box.

Flack drew a walk to open the bottom of the tenth, which brought up Seager in a tricky spot. The Kannapolis sophomore leads the ACC in RBI, but it was a situation crying for a sacrifice. That was the safe play in a spot where safe was foolproof. Move the game-winning and series-winning run into scoring position, force the Seminole defense to make a play, and take the out.

FSU brought in a left-hander, John Gast, to face Seager. Believing a bunt was imminent, they also sent third baseman Stephen Cardullo crashing in from third base. These are the decisions that are rehashed for years. Fox had to make it in seconds.

"I knew Gast was a freshman and hadn't thrown many innings," Fox said. "That's a tough spot for him, and I talked to Kyle about being very selective. I felt like if we could get in a 2-0 or 3-1 count he would want to throw a strike and Kyle would get a good pitch to hit."

"Coach Fox gave me one pitch to hit," Seager said. "If I got down a strike, I think he wanted me to bunt. They definitely thought I was going to bunt. The pitcher fell behind and gave me a good pitch to hit."

It unfolded exactly as Fox hoped. Gast fell behind 2-0 and then had to find the strike zone. Seager laced the ball to right field to put runners at the corners with nobody out.

After an intentional walk to Tim Federowicz, it was time for another of those late-inning choices. Lefty Mark Fleury--1-for-16 against lefty pitchers this year--was due up next. The Tar Heels had righties Greg Holt and Zeke Blanton on the bench. But with FSU righthanded stalwart Jimmy Marshall ready in the bullpen, Fox again decided the best choice was no choice.

"If we'd have gone to a righty, they would go to the bullpen with their righty," the head coach said. "Or I could have Fleury up there knowing he was going to take. Mark looked like he wanted to get in the box. I liked his body language in that spot."

The sophomore catcher went to the plate with a few final words of instruction from his coach: "Don't swing until you see a strike."

He never saw a strike. Gast issued a game-ending four-pitch walk.

And just like that, it was over.

"We've been in some big games already this year, so I already knew a little about this team," Fox said. "We've got some guys with a little bit of a temper and toughness about them that I like. And I like the way they responded today. We were just good enough today."

And that was all it took.

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.