They won’t all be like this — but Duke’s baseball team will keep rolling up the blowout victories while it can.
The Blue Devils beat Queens 12-2 on Tuesday night at Jack Coombs Field, rolling to their fourth straight win — all of which have ended in the seventh inning because of the 10-run mercy rule.
This one didn’t look like a blowout until the seventh. Duke (33-15) ended the game with a seven-run seventh that included home runs of the first three varieties; Ben Rounds hit a solo shot, Jake Berger hit a three-run blast, and Jake Hyde smashed a two-run homer.
The game ended when Tyler Albright scored on a wild pitch.
Rounds was 4-for-5, also hitting a solo homer in the second inning. It was Duke’s second homer of the game, as AJ Gracia launched one in the first inning.
Berger and Albright drove in runs with RBI singles, and Hyde also had a sacrifice fly in the sixth.
Gracia, Hyde, Berger and Albright each had two hits.
Kyle Johnson (2-3) started on the mound for Duke and retired all six batters he faced. Max Stammel followed him with another two scoreless innings, working around a hit and a walk and striking out four.
Gavin Brown gave up two hits but didn’t allow a run in the fifth inning. Queens (8-39) got two runs in the sixth against Mark Hindy. Reid Easterly pitched what wound up being the final inning with a scoreless seventh.