Notre Dame baseball: Irish win Cambria Classic with strong pitching

Notre Dame was “just win, baby” personified at the Cambria Classic.

Playing in a unique setup inside the Minnesota Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium against three Big Ten teams, the Fighting Irish couldn’t have gone into the weekend thinking they were going to score in bunches. When the conditions are peculiar and talent level in the opposing dugout is spiked a tad, games are won from the pitcher’s mound.

And that’s exactly where Notre Dame got the job done.

The Irish defeated Illinois 6-1, beat Michigan State 2-1 and finished off the weekend with a triumph over host school Minnesota 3-1 to leave the Gopher State as the only team to compile a 3-0 record in the Cambria Classic. Hits and runs were hard to come by, especially in the latter two matchups. But that is just fine, especially early in the season, when a team pitches as well as Notre Dame (8-1) did.

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How’s this for starting pitching lines? Friday starter Aidan Tyrell: Five innings, one earned run. Saturday starter John Michael Bertrand: Seven innings, one earned run. Sunday starter Austin Temple: Seven innings, one earned run. Nineteen innings of three-run baseball from Notre Dame’s starters. That will keep a team in a lot of ballgames. The kicker? Or, rather, the closer? The Notre Dame bullpen was even better. Four pitchers, eight innings, zero earned runs.

Junior righty Alex Rao showed poise and polish as a go-to middle reliever in tossing 41 pitches over three innings against Illinois. He struck out three, walked one and allowed just four hits. Junior Jack Brannigan, Notre Dame’s starting third baseman, closed things out in the ninth. He didn’t allow a hit, as was the case in his first appearance of the year. Brannigan pitched four innings in 2021. He’s already halfway to that total in 2022.

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Brannigan also had the swing of the day against Michigan State. It might have been the swing of the weekend. Game tied 1-1 in the bottom of the seventh after the Spartans knotted things up in the top half of the inning, Brannigan took a full-count fastball hung over the middle of the plate over the left field fence for his first home run of the season. It was just a solo shot, but that’s all Notre Dame needed. Seton Hall transfer Ryan McLinskey pitched two perfect innings in relief of Bertrand to seal the deal. Six up, six down with four strikeouts for McLinskey, who has not allowed an earned run in 6 2/3 innings of work this season.

Senior lefty Will Mercer had a similar line in Sunday’s finale against Minnesota. Seven batters faced, three strikeouts and just one walk. No hits, no runs. Temple, a right-handed transfer from Jacksonville, allowed just one hit in his seven innings. He struck out a career-high nine batters in what might have been the best start of his career. It was one of the better team pitching performances any team could have. The Gophers only sent a hitter to the plate 30 times and had three base runners all day; one hit, two walks.

Through nine games, Notre Dame has a team ERA of 1.46. That checks in at No. 2 nationally behind Texas (1.00). Notre Dame pitchers fanned opposing batters 28 combined times in three games. It’s early. Only three weekends of baseball have been played. But as it stands, Notre Dame has one of the best pitching staffs in the country. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Head coach Link Jarrett said a week and a half before the season started this staff could be even better than last year’s, one that finished third in the ACC with a team ERA of 3.92.

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The Irish are blowing that out of the water right now, but it’s not realistic to think the number will stay well below 2.00 as competition continues to stiffen. It’s probably not realistic to think the Irish batting order will continue to look a little lost either. As the pitching prospects worsen a tad, the hitting should get better. It’s not too early, however, for Jarrett to make some adjustments to try to spark some offense. That’s what he did against Minnesota.

Leadoff hitter Spencer Myers went 1 for 8 in the first two games of the weekend to drop his batting average to .138. Jarrett dropped the struggling graduate student who hit .295 last season to ninth in the order Sunday. He went 0 for 2 and is hitting .129 through nine games. Myers was the designated hitter in all three games, so it’s not like Jarrett needs to leave him in the lineup for fielding purposes. Sophomore Nick Juaire pinch hit for Myers late in Sunday’s game, but he was retired for the first time this season. He’s hitting 3 for 4 with two RBI. It might be time for Jarrett to see what Juaire can do throughout the course of a full game.

Notre Dame went 17 of 88 (.193) as a team in the three games. It’s not going to be like that all year. It hadn’t been that way until the Irish trekked to Minnesota. Notre Dame was hitting .348 going into the weekend. The Irish are now hitting .304. There are still six starters batting better than .300, led by graduate senior catcher David LaManna’s sizzling .444 start to the season. Sophomore TJ Williams is hitting .400. He homered in the win over Illinois. One bad week at the plate won’t define a team with too many pieces to continue to struggle.

Despite totaling two hits against Michigan State, the Irish did not strike out once. They only struck out five times as a team against Minnesota. They’re putting the ball in play. They just need to find some gaps.

Notre Dame plays its first midweek game of the season Tuesday at Elon (6-5) at 4 p.m.

Notre Dame in national college baseball rankings

Baseball America: No. 3 (Previously No. 3)

D1Baseball.com: No. 9 (Previously No. 12)

USA Today Coaches Poll: Not updated (Previously No. 12)

Collegiate Baseball Newspaper: No. 8 (Previously No. 9)

RPI: No. 42