University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Sweeping Smiles
April 23, 2006 | Baseball
April 23, 2006
By Adam Lucas
Daniel Bard and Andrew Carignan were two of the last players to leave Boshamer Stadium Sunday afternoon. They'd lingered to sign a few autographs, chat with their parents, and generally soak up what turned into a terrific Sunday afternoon in Chapel Hill following a pair of victories over NC State that clinched a series sweep and allowed the Heels to take a two-game lead in the ACC's Coastal Division.
It was fitting, then, that after they were both gone--Carignan having earned the win in the second game of the series that was halted by rain Saturday night and Bard picking up a complete-game shutout in game three Sunday afternoon--the next Tar Heel to pop out of the Carolina dugout was pitching coach Scott Forbes.
He allowed himself the briefest of smiles while accepting congratulations. He'd earned it, as Carignan and Bard have been two of his biggest projects since taking over as Carolina's pitching coach this summer.
When he accepted the job, it was a tricky situation. He hadn't been a pitching coach at his last stop, Winthrop, and had to replace the much-loved Roger Williams.
"A change like that is tough," said Carolina senior Jonathan Hovis, who pitched four shutout innings in relief in game two. "I didn't know if there was any way to replace Coach Williams. But it's been great. Everybody really respects Coach Forbes."
Williams, who was called "Chief" by almost everyone in the program, had a reputation for dispensing wisdom in compact doses. He wasn't always loquacious, but when he said something you knew it was important.
Forbes is more talkative and has even been known to crack a joke or two in the minutes before a game (he is the world's foremost expert on opposing teams' BP pitchers). He can dish it out but he can also take it--players and coaches regaled each other throughout much of fall practice with stories of his latest spelling errors.
The good-natured approach hides a deep knowledge of the game. A former catcher who worked closely with Williams while an assistant with the Tar Heels from 1999-2002, his no-nonsense approach has shaped a pitching staff with simple goals: work quickly, throw strikes, work ahead.
He also worked extensively with Carignan in the fall to restructure the talented sophomore's delivery. The righthander had flashed plenty of raw talent during his freshman campaign, including a fastball that can touch the mid-90s, but his control (16 walks in 22 innings) had occasionally been a problem.
Forbes changed Carignan's mechanics to feature a more balanced delivery. After sometimes getting out of kilter in 2005, now almost every pitch looks the same.
The results seem to be the same almost every time, too. Carignan has turned into the lights-out closer the Tar Heel bullpen needed and has struck out 28 hitters in 22.1 innings while walking just eight. His ERA, 0.40, is the lowest on the team.
Bard needed some midseason tinkering after a rough four-game stretch when his ERA was over 10. The Tar Heel coaches tweaked his release point, used the team's video system to illustrate to the pitcher what was going wrong, and watched him make small steps forward against Miami and Virginia Tech. Then they sat back and reaped the benefits when he dominated the nation's second-best hitting team on Sunday afternoon. In several recent starts Bard had thrown either his breaking ball or fastball well--against the Wolfpack he threw both exceptionally and put together a performance head coach Mike Fox called the best of his Carolina career.
"He wasn't overthrowing," Fox said. "He was nice and calm and he found his release point. He gained confidence through the first two or three innings and was really good."
The entire staff was really good. In 32 innings of play this weekend against the ACC's best hitting team, they gave up just five runs (only four were earned). The Tar Heel weekend rotation, which features Bard, Andrew Miller, and Robert Woodard, had been touted as among the nation's best in the preseason. It looked like it this weekend. And every pitcher who was called upon from the bullpen did exactly what the Tar Heels needed him to do. Matt Danford was the perfect illustration, as he faced just six batters all weekend but threw what might have been the biggest pitch of the series when he coaxed a Jonathan Diaz line drive double play to end the 12th inning of the second game.
"That was pretty sweet," Forbes allowed as he left Boshamer Stadium late Sunday afternoon.
Chalk it up to another Forbes misspelling. What he should have said was that it was pretty sweep.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
