Duke baseball weekend recap

Duke lost its first game of the baseball season on Saturday, but bounced back to win the Sunday game and the series against Akron.

It was a tight series for Duke (10-1), which rode stellar pitching for most of the weekend and just couldn’t muster enough offense in the middle game of the series.

The Blue Devils have two mid-week games, against Appalachian State on Tuesday and Georgetown on Wednesday, before the first ACC series of the season — that comes next weekend against No. 1 Wake Forest.

Here is a recap of each game this weekend:

On Friday, Jonathan Santucci continued his torrid start to the season.

Duke’s junior ace pitched six scoreless innings with a career-high 14 strikeouts. He only gave up one hit and two walks. The most impressive number in all of that might be that he only needed 82 pitches; 60 of them were strikes.

Santucci (3-0) has pitched 17 innings this season and hasn’t allowed a run. He’s allowed one runner per inning, with 10 hits and seven walks allowed, and recorded 31 strikeouts.

Almost all of the offensive support came in a five-run fourth inning. Devin Obee got an early run with an RBI single in the second, and then started things in the fourth with a solo homer.

Macon Winslow made it back-to-back homers, and Zac Morris added a two-run homer later in the fourth. The last run of the inning, and the game, came on Alex Stone’s RBI single.

After Santucci’s exit, Gabriel Nard pitched a scoreless inning. Fran Oschell III started the eighth and faced two batters, walking one and hitting the other, as the star reliever is still searching for his form early in the season. Edward Hart finished the eighth, stranding both runners, and Ryan Higgins recorded a 1-2-3 ninth.

On Saturday, Duke’s first loss of the season came after a strong start by Andrew Healy, but without much offense.

Duke scored the first two runs, getting RBI singles by Logan Bravo and AJ Gracia in the third inning. Bravo was 3-for-4 and Gracia was 2-for-4, those two accounting for five of Duke’s eight hits.

Healy pitched five innings and allowed one run, scored in the fourth on a double by Sam Seeker. Otherwise, this was another exhibit of Healy establishing himself as Duke’s No. 2 starter, allowing four hits and a walk, striking out nine.

Aidan Weaver, Duke’s Sunday starter for the first two weekends but not this one, gave up a run on a single, sac bunt, passed ball, walk and another sac bunt in a brief appearance in the sixth. Tim Noone relieved him and allowed two inherited runners to score, giving the Zips a 4-2 lead.

Obee led off the ninth with a homer to make it a one-run game, but that was as close as Duke came.

On Sunday, two-way weapon Kyle Johnson (3-0) started for the first time and pitched four shutout innings, as the freshman continues to impress early in the season.

Johnson hasn’t given up an earned run in 12 innings on the mound. Against the Zips, he gave up three hits and two walks, striking out five. As a position player, Johnson is 5-for-20 with two doubles and a triple.

Duke’s first run came on a bases-loaded walk in the fourth, and then the Blue Devils got a two-run homer by Morris and a solo shot by Ben Miller in the fifth.

Akron (3-7) tightened things up in the sixth, scoring a couple of runs against Higgins. Hart got the Blue Devils out of the inning.

And then it was Charlie Beilenson time, with Duke’s closer who hadn’t pitched yet in the weekend pitching the final three innings for his fifth save of the season. Beilenson gave up two hits and struck out six, getting through the three innings on an economic 42 pitches (33 for strikes).

Duke got insurance runs on sacrifice flies by Andrew Yu and Obee later in the game, along with an RBI single by Bravo.