Three takeaways from Notre Dame baseball season-opening weekend

It’s baseball. Nobody wins them all. Not even No. 4 Notre Dame, a serious contender to build upon a 2021 season that saw the Fighting Irish get within one win of the College World Series.

The Irish started the season with a resounding 17-2 victory over Manhattan on Friday. They backed it up with a solid 5-3 win over Stetson on Saturday. Sunday, in a 9 a.m. local first pitch at the Hatter Classic in DeLand, Fla., Notre Dame fell in a 5-4 walk-off loss to Delaware.

Here are three takeaways from a 2-1 start to the season for head coach Link Jarrett‘s team.

1. Power deep in the lineup

Six of Notre Dame’s 19 hits in the win over Manhattan came from the No. 8 and 9 hitters in the lineup. Senior outfielder Brooks Coetzee homered twice and went 4-for-5 with four RBI. Graduate senior catcher David LaManna went 2-for-2 before exiting the game for a pinch hitter.

LaManna was the hero Saturday, going 2-for-4 with two RBI and a run scored. He finished the weekend with a .667 batting average, the best mark on the team. Coetzee left Florida hitting .417, second-best in the Irish lineup. Leadoff hitter Spencer Myers, a graduate senior outfielder, went 1-for-9 (.111) on the weekend. That made it all the more important for Notre Dame to get some production from deeper in the order.

Coetzee and LaManna delivered.

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2. Tyrell, Bertrand provide 1-2 pitching punch

A batting order can come into its own throughout the course of the season. Nobody should expect Myers to struggle all year. A pitching staff can get stronger too, but it helps a ton to have confidence in that department from the start. Notre Dame starting pitchers Aidan Tyrell and John Michael Bertrand eased some of those nerves.

The two combined to pitch 10.0 innings in Friday and Saturday starts. Tyrell allowed three hits in four innings while striking out six and walking two. He didn’t allow any runs. Bertrand struck out eight batters in six innings. The one run to cross the plate during his appearance was not charged to his ledger. He did not walk any batters and gave up five hits.

3. Other pitching questions to answer

Jacksonville graduate transfer Austin Temple got the ball in the loss to Delaware. He struck out nine hitters and did not walk any, but he allowed two runs on five hits. From there, Notre Dame turned to freshman righty Roman Kimball. Putting in a first-year hurler with a two-run lead in the sixth is the moment the game took a turn.

Kimball hit the first batter he faced. He walked the second. Jarrett yanked him immediately, but he turned to another freshman, Caden Aoki, and it backfired again. An infield single loaded the bases. Aoki issued a walk, which scored a run. He struck out the next better, but a fielder’s choice force out tied the game at 4-4. Aoki finished the inning with an other strikeout, but the damage had been done.

Aoki could end up being an integral part of this pitching staff. He worked 1-2-3 innings in the seventh and eighth. He was the one who gave up the walk-off homer with one out in the ninth, his fourth inning of work. Notre Dame only used six relief pitchers over the course of three games. Three of them pitched at least three innings, and three pitched one or fewer. The Irish need to figure out bullpen roles as the season progresses.