Pitt Ends Regular Season at Wake Forest

PITTSBURGH – Pitt baseball (22-16, 16-14 ACC) plays its final ACC series of the regular season at Wake Forest (17-27, 7-22) Thursday at 6 p.m., Friday at 3 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m.

HOW TO FOLLOW

Friday's game is on ACC Network, and the other two games are available to be streamed on WatchESPN/ACCNX.
Fans can also follow along with live stats updates through Twitter. Follow @Pitt_BASE for the latest news and updates about the team.

STARTING PITCHERS

THURSDAY: RHP Mitch Myers (4-4, 2.92 ERA, 1.18 WHIP) | RHP Ryan Cusick (2-5, 4.60 ERA, 1.44 WHIP)
FRIDAY: TBA | RHP Rhett Lowder (3-2, 6.18 ERA, 1.50 WHIP)
SATURDAY: TBA | RHP William Fleming (3-6, 6.35 ERA, 1.50 WHIP)

BATTLING FOR A COASTAL TITLE

With one series left in the regular season, the Panthers sit in second place in the Coastal Division of the ACC at 16-14 (.533).
The race to win the division is tight as Georgia Tech (19-14, .576) is in first, and Miami (17-16, .531), North Carolina (17-16), Virginia Tech (16-17, .485) and Virginia (16-17) are all within three games.
The standings and seeding for the ACC Tournament are determined solely by winning percentage.
Head-to-head play will be the first tiebreaker, but that will only happen if other ACC teams have games cancelled as Pitt has played three fewer ACC games due to its cancelled series at Louisville April 23-25.
Georgia Tech hosts North Carolina, Miami is at Louisville, Virginia Tech plays Notre Dame at home and Virginia is at Boston College.
To win the Coastal Division, Pitt needs to either sweep Wake Forest and Georgia Tech lose its series or win the series at Wake Forest.
Having played every Coastal opponent already, Pitt won series against Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina and Virginia while dropping them to Virginia Tech and Duke.
The program has only won one conference regular season championship, the Big East title in 1994 at 15-5.

A SPOT IN CHARLOTTE IS CLINCHED

After the first win in the series victory over Boston College May 7, Pitt clinched a spot in the upcoming ACC Tournament.
This year's tournament will be held in Charlotte at Truist Field for the first time May 25-30, and the traditional format remains the same with four pools of three teams and the winners of each advancing to the single-elimination semifinals.
With the top-12 teams regardless of division earning slots into the ACC Tournament, Pitt's currently Pitt slotted as the No. 6 seed and would have Florida State (No. 3) and Virginia (No. 10).
The Panthers could be seeded as high as No. 2 and as low as No. 11.
A series win this weekend would ensure Pitt would be seed no lower than No. 8.
The Panthers have only appeared in one ACC Tournament since joining the league for the 2014 season.
In 2018, the team earned the last seed (No. 12) and knocked off No. 8 Georgia Tech 2-1 and top-seeded North Carolina 5-4 to reach the semifinals of the tourney.

TOP RPI MATCHUP

The series features a pair of top-100 RPI ranked teams with Pitt (39th) and Wake Forest (97th).
Pitt has the 16th-toughest strength of schedule so far this season and own 14 wins against quadrant one teams (one against No. 12 Notre Dame and No. 40 Duke, two against No. 34 Indiana State, No. 44 Georgia Tech and No. 46 Virginia and a sweep of No. 24 Miami and No. 48 Florida State).
All but five games have come against quadrant one and two teams.
The ACC also ranks third in the conference RPI rankings as all 14 teams are in the top-100 with 12 in the top-60.
The NCAA released its first RPI rankings of the season Feb. 25, and the Panthers were slotted second (.6487) behind just Arkansas.

SCOUTING THE OPPONENT-WAKE FOREST

With their season set to end after being eliminated from the ACC Tournament last weekend, the last place Demon Deacons have just two wins in their last five ACC series and own just one series victory (Florida State).
Wake Forest leads the league in homers (82).
Junior infielder Bobby Semour has been one of the conference's best powers hitters, ranking second in homers (19), third in RBIs (52) and fourth in slugging percentage (.692) while also leading the team in batting average (.296), hits (50), walks (25) and on-base percentage (.391).
Freshman infielder/catcher Brock Wilken has been almost just as good, ranking third in homers (16), seventh in slugging percentage (.633) and ninth in RBIs (43).

ALL-TIME SERIES