Hitting wise NC State seems to be your standard solid team. Hitting .290 as a team overall with about 99 home runs as a team. They are 44 of 55 on stolen bases, so they got a couple guys that will run, but after those two they get real selective on who might move on the paths. Mostly it will be Brandon Butterworth (now I want pancakes) and Luke Nixon who have 13 and 14 stolen bases respectively. No one else has above 7.
The key to this offense is the top 4 hitters. Once we get past those guys things take a pretty sizeable dip in regarding to average and threats.
Serrano will leadoff and play center. He's hitting .297 with 9 home runs and 9 doubles. He has stolen 7 bags on 8 attempts. Struck out 33 times and walked 31. So, he has a solid eye at the plate.
Pennington Garrett will be hitting next in the 2 more likely than not and he'll be playing 1B. Garrett is the next threat hitting .348 with 26 doubles and 18 home runs. Similarly, he has 43Ks to 30 walks.
The big threat is Alex Makarewicz (I have no idea how you pronounce that, and not even sure I spelled it right). He is hitting .380 as a grad student transfer from ECU. He has 25 doubles and 22 home runs. He will strike out a bit with 49Ks to 25 walks. He will be at third and hitting in the 3 hole.
Four hole hitter is Jacob Cozart who is hitting .300 with 7 doubles and 19 home runs and 1 triple. He will be behind the dish as he has been for almost every game. He will strike out a good chunk, but he has a real good eye as well with 47 strikeouts to 49 walks. Pitchers might be fearing this guy as a hitter, or they might just be trying to get past him and walking him a good chunk. Get through these three and the threat goes down pretty significantly from there.
After that the averages dip quite a bit. Brandon Butterworth is a steal threat. He's hitting 5th a chunk and has 12 doubles 2 triples and 7 home runs to go with his 13 steals. More walks (40) than strikeouts (36) so, he's going to be real patient up there.
Luke Nixon is the other steal threat and will likely hit in the 7 hole. He's hitting .246 with 5 doubles a triple and 4 home runs. Equal walks to strikeouts at 33 and 14 steals. He leads the team in hit by pitches.
Noah Soles is in right and usually hitting 9th at .221 with 6 doubles and 5 home runs. Definitely don't want the 9 hole to burn you with a deep ball. He has 18 strikeouts to 9 walks and has an OBP of a solid .392 given his .221 overall average. 5 steals for him, so he is a tiny threat.
Alex Sosa will hit 6th most likely and DH with a .226 average with just 1 double and 6 home runs. He has an upside down margin on K/BB with 31Ks to 19 walks. Sosa is a catcher, but it seems like he rarely gets time behind there.
Matt Heavner often plays 2nd and hits 8th. He's hitting .264 with 4 doubles and 2 home runs. 17Ks to 10 walks but he's been hit by pitches 7 times.
All in all, the big deal about this NC State team, IMO, is that they are real patient. They are going to make opposing pitchers and defenses beat them. They will take walks and they aren't going to strike out a whole lot (only about 19 percent of the time). So, Pooser is going to need to be throwing strikes and filling up the zone, or the Wolfpack will be more than happy to take the free bags. Still, UK has not been a team that is a strikeout heavy type of team. We're very reliant on defense behind us, and so this style bodes well for us as long as we're keeping pitches down in the zone and throwing strikes.
Behing the plate Cozart has been real good with a .994 fielding percentage and he's thrown out 13 runners and given up 27 stolen bases. He's had just 9 passed balls on the year. So, he is going to likely do a pretty decent job behind the plate. As a team NC State has given up 35 stolen bags all year on 56 attempts. However, I doubt they've played a team quite like this UK one.
