Virginia Tech Baseball: Despite Hokies' recent struggles & flaws, RPI carrying them toward a postseason berth

One of the more surprising teams through the first month of the college baseball season was Virginia Tech. For the most part, the Hokies beat the team they were supposed to beat and were winning the series’ before they kicked off ACC play. Once ACC play began, they took advantage of an early scheduling gift.

They swept Notre Dame and Boston College and took two out of three from Louisville and Pittsburgh before the schedule got tougher. Since they started playing some of the top teams in the conference with them, they have struggled losing their last four conference series. Once that gauntlet began, the struggles started and you could say exposed some flaws they had.

They were swept by Wake Forest and lost two out of three to Georgia Tech, Duke, and North Carolina. To compound matters, they held a 7-0 lead over the Yellow Jackets in Game 3 of the series only to lose 11-7 after splitting the first two games. Against Duke, they could have easily won that series, but meltdowns from the bullpen, which didn’t concern head coach John Szefc at the time, cost them a series win. Despite all of that, the Hokies are sitting in a position where if they can take advantage of their remaining schedule, they should be in the NCAA Tournament, thanks to one thing, their RPI.

Virginia Tech has a Top 40 RPI

If there is one thing Virginia Tech has going for it is their RPI, which is currently 38th in the country. What also helps is that the ACC has seven teams ahead of them in the RPI and they still have a series remaining with Virginia, which is ranked 15th. They also have a home ACC series remaining with Miami. 

If there has been one area that has let the Hokies down it’s been their pitching, both starters and the bullpen. Their weekend starters are not giving them length as they did earlier in the season, something that should be expected, and the bullpen has sprung some leaks. In their win over North Carolina Sunday, the bullpen worked nine innings of relief after Griffin Stieg went down three pitches into the game to secure a Top 15 road win, 4-3. Hopefully, that is something that can jump-start them.

They get an ACC bye this upcoming weekend and will instead host Ohio for a three-game set before closing with Miami and Virginia before the ACC Tournament.