Untouchable Rocker no-hits Duke
NASHVILLE | There have been some amazing moments in Hawkins Field history, but what Kumar Rocker did on Saturday night takes the cake.
With Vanderbilt facing NCAA Tournament elimination, Rocker threw a complete-game no-hitter, striking out 19 Duke hitters in Vanderbilt’s 3-0 win over the Blue Devils in the Nashville Super Regional.
It’s the first no-hitter pitched by a single Vandy player since 1971, and the first NCAA Tournament no-hitter in the super regional era, which started in 1999.
Rocker fired 131 pitches, using a fastball and a slider to bedevil Duke all evening, providing quite an answer to the Blue Devils’ 18-5 pounding the night before. He hit a batter and walked two.
The freshman kept Vandy in a tense game all night. The Commodores didn’t score until the fifth before tacking on two insurance runs late.
Second baseman Harrison Ray had a game-high three hits, while catcher Philip Clarke, left fielder Stephen Scott and first baseman Julian Infante all knocked in runs for the Commodores (53-11).
“I think the obvious is that it was just a historic performance by a young man who just took our team and put us on his back, and in such a needed way” Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said afterwards.
“I don’t know, in the 17 years I’ve been here, if I’ve ever seen anything like that,” he continued later.
It got Vandy to a Sunday game that—weather permitting—will be the end of the season for one club. First pitch is scheduled for 2 Central. Rocker struck out 10 of 11 at one point in the middle innings, and fanned the last four of the night. The last one came against Duke No. 3 hitter Matt Mervis, who struck out on three pitches.
Vandy, which left one man on in every inning, finally broke through with Clarke’s two-out RBI single off Franklin native Bryce Jarvis in the fifth, which scored shortstop Ethan Paul.
Rocker, who’d retired the last nine hitters previous to that, took it from there.
“Whenever we got that one run, I was like, okay, I’ve got to go shut them down, so we can keep this game rolling and get out with a win.” Rocker said. “And got past that inning and I just kept rolling from there.”
Rocker was rolling, indeed.
The right-hander has a habit of working at warp speed. Opponents took to trying break his rhythm with delay tactics much of the year. Duke tried the same, and perhaps it worked briefly.
Rocker, who was consistently ahead in counts all evening, walked center fielder Damon Lux on four pitches with one out in the seventh, then, fanned Mervis to end the seventh.
A fired-up rocker Rocker stormed off the mound screaming to no one in particular as he headed to the dugout. Clarke made a point of staring down Mervis, and the sellout crowd of 3,626 erupted.
“It’s happened. In the [Southeastern Conference], they did it a lot and Duke caught on and so they tried to do it,” Rocker said, when asked about Duke’s delay tactics. “I don’t mind it, but it backfired.”
“I like it because it makes Kumar throw harder,” Clarke cracked.
A historic night was the furthest thing from Rocker’s—or anyone’s—mind early on.
Rocker hit Kennie Taylor, Duke’s starting center fielder and perhaps its best hitter, in the face with a 2-2 pitch in the first. Taylor was down several minutes as the crowd watched in complete silence before Taylor walked off the field on his own.
Rocker didn’t throw a fastball to the next hitter, Mervis, but fanned him on a bouncing slider. Lux, pinch-running for Taylor, took off as it hit the turf, and Clarke gunned him down to end the first.
“I thought the pivotal part was when he hit Kennie,” Corbin said. “When he hit Kennie, most teams can’t rebound from that moment. That’s a very difficult moment. … That was a scary thing.
“For Kumar, when he came off the field, you could tell he was a little bit shaken. When he comes in, he slams my hand every time he comes in [tp the dugout.] And he didn’t. And Was thinking that, ‘I hope he can get through that moment,’ and he did.”
Rocker walked catcher Michael Rothenberg to start the second. Left fielder Kyle Gallagher’s grounder to Paul could have been a double play, but Ray couldn’t turn it. A strikeout and a grounder to third got him out of the second.
A ground-out to short started Rocker’s bottom of the third. Then came a pair of strikeouts, starting his run of nine in 10 hitters.
“To be honest, I was looking at the strikeouts. … I was going to try to get to 10,” Rocker said. “I kept peeking at the Ks [fans were tallying in center field]. I guess the no hits came with it.”
The most impressive inning was the fifth, when Rocker struck out four Blue Devils but Ethan Murray, the inning’s third hitter, reached on a wild pitch.
In the top half of that inning, with nobody on and two outs in the fifth, Paul singled to center. With Clarke at the plate, Paul stole second and when Jarvis’s pitch got wide of Rothenberg.
On a 1-2 count, Clarke took a pitch on the outer part of the plate and pulled it to right for the game’s first run. Then, Vandy center fielder Pat DeMarco just missed a home run when reserve Lux made a long run to haul it in at the top of the wall in left-center.
Vandy finally got breathing room in the eighth.
DeMarco ripped a 2-2 pitch to deep center for a triple off Duke closer Thomas Girard, who’d just entered the game, to start the eighth. Scott then clobbered a 3-2 pitch from Girard that just missed leaving the park to center, but got DeMarco in.
Girard, having finger issues, departed for Jack Carey. Ray reached on a bunt down third and then DH Ty Duvall hit a fly ball in a tough spot to left that Gallagher over-ran and turned into a double.
On an 0-1 count, Infante dropped a suicide bunt down third that scored Ray easily.
Meanwhile, Rocker kept rolling. He hit 97 on the stadium gun—which Rocker admitted was likely “hot”—with pitch 120. He touched 99 at various points in the evening.
Corbin hasn’t named a starter, but said it would be either Mason Hickman or Patrick Raby. Duke is expected to counter with lefty Bill Chillari.