Louisville baseball: Cards have everything needed for World Series run

Louisville baseball head coach Dan McDonnell has his seventh-ranked Cardinals looking like a serious National Championship contending team.

There’s no doubt that the road to Omaha is already paved from Jim Patterson this year for Louisville baseball. The 7th ranked Cardinals have proved themselves worthy of the challenge.

The Cards are 36-9 on the season with every guy that steps out on the field ready to play every game.

Louisville has eight guys that play regularly that are hitting over .300 and five guys that have OPS of over .900. Logan Wyatt, who has 53 walks on the season, and Alex Binelas both have OPS of over 1.000 along with both hitting over .300 and having seven and eight home runs, respectfully.

Regular starters, Tyler Fitzgerald and Danny Oriente are both hitting over .300 while Drew Campbell and Trey Leonard are just under. These boys can hit and they can get on base. This is also a Louisville team that can play the field. They’re good offensively and defensively.

They show no mercy. In a series against Alabama A&M last weekend, they outscored the Bulldogs 61-7. The first game of the series they won 32-1.

“We continue to show our depth, we can mix and match, put some guys in that lineup, even guys that come off the bench are really good players,” coach Dan McDonnell said after game two against Alabama A&M. “I think they start to trust each other, not putting so much of the burden on their own shoulder, really playing for each.”

This team has pitching too, and that’s something everyone can see.

“It always goes back to pitching and defensive, if you pitch and defend then you don’t put as much pressure on the offense,” McDonnell said.

Sophomore Reid Detmers has the most strikeouts for the team with 133 in his 71 innings pitched. Junior Nick Bennett has 62 strikeouts this season in his 60.2 innings pitched and Sophomore Bobby Miller isn’t far behind with 56.

Louisville has pitching on both ends, that being starters and closers that can carry the team to victory. As a team, the Cards’ pitchers have had a 3.44 ERA while putting their opposing pitchers at a 7.08 ERA.

This team fights, they have yet to let a team completely shut them out of a game. They’ve only had one game this season where they didn’t get a run across the board. Even in that 4-0 loss against Georgia Tech on March 23, they still had five hits. They’ve outscored their opponents 367-177 this season.

This team still has time to grow as well as still having competition in their future before the College World Series. They play ACC games against Notre Dame, Virginia, and No. 23 ranked Florida State in the coming weeks. They also play No. 4 ranked Vanderbilt and No. 19 Indiana. These games will be proof as to if Louisville can stand up to the tough matchups that await them in Omaha.

If, and when, the Cardinals get the wins within the next couple of weeks, they’ll set a ground for themselves to win a lot of games in Omaha.

It won’t be an easy task to keep winning once they make it to the CWS, but if the talent proves itself with pitching and hitting alike, who knows where they may end up.