Louisville baseball proves it’s still a cut above the Cats

Nick Mingione got it right Thursday, the day before Kentucky traveled to Louisville to play the Cardinals for a trip to the College World Series.

“Brutal honesty,” said the UK coach when asked about UK’s opponent, “Their program is in a different place than ours.”

Friday and Saturday, Louisville proved it. As far as the Kentucky baseball program came this year, challenging for an SEC title, winning 43 games, reaching an NCAA Super Regional for the first time in school history, the Cats have not passed their cross-state rival up I-64.

After Louisville’s 5-2 Friday win, the Cardinals delivered a near carbon-copy performance on Saturday, besting the Cats 6-2 to sweep the best-of-three series and earn the program its fourth CWS berth in 11 years under head coach Dan McDonnell.

Third baseman and noted Cat-killer Drew Ellis followed his three-run homer on Friday with two solo shots on Saturday. Starting pitcher Brendan McKay, Baseball America’s National Player of the Year, scattered two runs over 6.2 innings. And reliever Sam Bordner, he of the 0.47 ERA, fired 2.1 innings of hitless baseball as Louisville redeemed itself after losing in the super regionals each of the last two seasons, both in excruciating fashion.

In 2015, Louisville lost the deciding game to Cal State-Fullerton 8-7 in 11 innings. Last year, after losing the first game against UC Santa Barbara, the Cards took a 3-0 lead into the ninth inning in the second game only to watch in disbelief as the Gauchos smacked a walk-off grand slam to abruptly eliminate the Cardinals.

“It was the like everything came crashing down on us,” remembered McKay on Saturday.

Though not under such gut-wrenching circumstances, the end to Kentucky’s 2017 season was also emotional, though for different reasons. It was a remarkable run no one in the dugout wanted to see end.

“If you’re a Kentucky fan right now, you should be very happy,” McDonnell said. “That was a phenomenal team. You’ve got a great young coach. You’ve got an awesome pitching coach in Jimmy Belanger and a phenomenal coaching staff. So I think the future is really bright.”

The present, however, belongs to the Cards. An offensive juggernaut all season, Kentucky managed just four runs on 15 hits over the two games. They could never unlock the “Biggie Box,” their nickname for a big inning. Saturday, the Cats had runners on first and third with one out in the fifth and scored just one run. They had runners at second and third with one out in the sixth and failed to score. They had runners at the corners with no outs in the seventh and scored one run.

“He would bend, but he would not break,” said Mingione.

Meanwhile, from across the river in Jeffersonville, Ellis has made a career out of beating up on Kentucky pitching. In six games over two seasons, the sophomore is 10-for-21 with four homers and 16 RBI.

A pair of former Lexington prep stars also played roles in Louisville’s Saturday win. Shortstop Devin Hairston, out of Tates Creek, went 3-for-4 and scored a run. Center fielder Logan Taylor, out of Lexington Catholic, went 2-for-4 and made a terrific running catch against the wall of a Marcus Carson drive in the ninth inning.

“There’s no way I wasn’t catching that ball,” said Taylor afterward.

“Logan Taylor is the best center fielder in the country,” said McDonnell.

Surely one of Mingione’s future goals is to keep local products like Taylor and Hairston from migrating up the road to McDonnell’s program. There’s only one way to do that: Win. And win big.

The Cats laid the groundwork for that this year. Even McDonnell called UK’s season “a springboard” for what its future may hold. Mingione became emotional when talking about how this team had changed his life, how much it had given throughout the year, but also about what comes next.

“I told our guys, ‘It’s good to get here, but moving forward we’ve got to win here,’” said the coach. “That’s the next step for our baseball program.”

A step Louisville has already taken, now four times since 2007. Its next step is not just to go to a College World Series, but to win one.

This story was originally published June 10, 2017 at 8:29 PM with the headline "Louisville baseball proves it’s still a cut above the Cats."