There’s been a ton of baseball talent to don a North Carolina Tar Heels uniform over the years.
Some notable names you might recognize are Brian Roberts, Andrew Miller and Vance Honeycutt. There’s All-Stars dating back much further, including former head coach Mike Fox.
One of those former standouts will be repping UNC on the biggest stage of professional baseball tonight.
Ben Casparius, a former 2-way player who spent his 2018 and 2019 college baseball seasons in Chapel Hill, will start Game 4 of the World Series tonight.
Casparius has a golden chance to help his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates clinch a 4-game sweep against the New York Yankees, who are MLB’s historically most-decorated team with 27 championships.
With Casparius only appearing in three regular season games for LA, why does he start Game 4 of the Fall Classic?
If I had to guess, it’s for one reason: Dodgers manager Dave Roberts wants tonight to be a bullpen game. That’s become a common practice in recent seasons, with the Tampa Bay Rays popularizing “openers” who typically pitch out of the bullpen.
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Casparius has showcased his viability as a reliable bullpen arm for the NL West Champs in limited action, recording a 2-0 record, 2.16 earned run average and 12 strikeouts across 8 1/3 innings. That success has carried over to the postseason, in which Casparius is 1-0 with four strikeouts, through 4 1/3 shutout innings.
On the mound at North Carolina, Casparius compiled a 1-0 record across 27 innings in 22 appearances, allowed just 10 runs on 21 hits, struck out 23 batters.
At the plate as a Diamond Heel, Casparius hit for a career .260 average with 35 hits, 24 RBIs and nine runs.
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