A little over a month ago, the Notre Dame baseball team’s NCAA Tournament résumé read like a punchline.
Which makes sitting on the bubble — 11 days ahead of Selection Monday — feel a bit more comfortable, even if your destiny isn’t completely your own.
A case in point, the Irish on May 6 were in D1baseball.com’s first four teams out in that week’s 64-team bracket projection. The Irish then went out and flambéed a 31-win Bowling Green team over a three-game stretch by a combined score of 25-1 … and dropped back to “the next four out” in Monday’s latest projection.
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On Tuesday, the Irish knocked off Eastern Michigan, 12-10, in a makeup game against the team that was supposed to be their home-opening opponent way back on March 5. That marked the 14th win in a 16-game span for the Irish (30-19, 12-15 ACC), with the most impressive part being taking two of three from a Louisville team, currently ranked 21st.
An inflection point comes over the next three days in Coral Gables, Fla., against Miami (30-21, 14-12), one of 10 ACC teams D1 Baseball has in its current 64-team projection, with all but Virginia a 1 or 2 regional seed.
The Irish head into Thursday night’s opener (7 p.m. EDT; ACC Network Extra) of the final ACC series of the regular season in 11th place in the league standings, with no mathematical path to get up to the eighth spot and grab a bye in next week’s 16-team single-elimination ACC Tournament in Durham, N.C.
But definitely a chance to impress in the bigger picture.
“I think the Miami series would be really important,” ESPN baseball analyst and former ND player Mike Rooney said. “I think their résumé, if you use the horse race analogy, they’re kind of coming up from dead last. But they are definitely gaining ground. They’re a factor in this race.
“I mean, they have a lot of really good things.This win streak is huge. Their RPI is 46. That’s a scary place to be, because usually that’s the RPI range where you’re in the field until the upsets in the conference tournaments start happening. And so iffy, but you’re in range.
“So, I really view the Miami series as must-win. And then let’s be realistic and say you win two out of three, and then you’re 14-16. That’s still not super comfortable. I’d think it’d be super comfortable for them to go to the ACC Tournament and do some damage. Not saying you’d have to win the thing per se, but certainly going 0-1 in Durham would be bad.”
Notre Dame’s most recent NCAA Tournament appearance came in 2022 under coach Link Jarrett, who left for alma mater Florida State after taking the Irish to the College World Series that season. Successor Shawn Stiffler is in his third season leading the Irish.
Sophomore Jack Radel (6-4, 3.86) takes the mound for Notre Dame against Miami’s Griffin Hugus (5-5, 3.93) in Thursday night’s opener. The Irish are hoping to get back one of their top offensive threats, freshman outfielder/DH Bino Watters (.317/.436/.549).
Watters has been in a protective boot since the end of the Louisville series (May 3), missing the last four games. The hope is that he’ll be available for the Miami series, with his status officially listed as day-to-day. He’s No. 2 on the team in home runs (9) and tied for second in RBIs (39) and runs scored (40).
“I think Bino Watters is an All-American-type player,” Rooney said. “I think he’s just going to keep getting better and better. It’s everything you want.
“He’s left-handed. He’s physical. He runs. Great at-bats. He doesn’t take slugger at-bats. He takes real hitter at-bats. He just happens to be 225 pounds.”
Also making ND’s late-season surge look real is sophomore catcher Carson Tinney (.352/.503/.752).Tinney’s among the ACC leaders in a plethora of offensive categories — including home runs (15) RBIs (49) — and the resounding leader in a defensive one — runners caught stealing (16). The next-closest ACC catcher has 12.
On Thursday Tinney was named one of 67 semifinalists for the 2025 Dick Howser Trophy. The finalists will be announced on June 7.
“I think people really like their young position player group,” Rooney said. “Carson Tinney is getting national headlines. People are talking about him as a Golden Spikes candidate, based on that hot streak.”
People are also talking about ND’s pitching, and now in a good way. Radel and Friday’s projected starter, junior Rory Fox (4-3, 3.09), are among the league leaders in ERA and opponents’ batting average. In fact, Fox is the ACC leader in the latter (.176).
Grad senior Jackson Dennies (3-3, 4.80) has also surged of late. And all three starters are going deeper into games at this juncture, meaning the bridge to closer Tobey McDonough (2-0, 1.48 ERA with 8 saves), hasn’t been exposing ND’s lack of pitching depth as much.
“Radel and Fox, these guys are real dudes,” Rooney said. “Very few teams in college baseball have awesome starting pitching. For Fox and Radel to be who they are and then Dennies is like an uber veteran, that’s awesome.”
What isn’t awesome on the ND résumé?
“Here’s the things that are holding them back right now — The No. 1 thing is 12-15 in the ACC,” Rooney said. “That’s problematic. You’ve got to get that to at least 14-16. Non-conference strength of schedule is a bad number. It’s 212. I think sometimes schools like Notre Dame will get some grace there, just because you’re in the north, etc.
“The other thing holding them back is their 5-10 vs. Q1. It doesn’t mean those things are deal-breakers.”
A wild card down the stretch, per Rooney, could be junior shortstop Estevan Moreno, who at .232 is batting more than 40 points lower than last season and is significantly down in on-base and slugging percentages and way up in strikeouts (team-leading 66).
“He’s really scuffled,” Rooney said. “He’s played below his talent level, but I think people really think this is a genuinely talented player. It’s like water, can he raise the level for a week? They’re not asking Moreno to redo his season. It’s like, ‘Be yourself for two weeks.’”
As far as Stiffler in year 3, Rooney is encouraged because of the preponderance of young talent and that talent flourishing. The Irish were 30-24/15-15 in 2023 under the former VCU coach and 27-25/9-21 last season.
“You love those young players, but it’s just hard to win in today’s college baseball when you’re that young,” Rooney said. “I do think that if you look at Link’s Omaha team, people get confused thinking that was a ‘portal team’ or they were taking a bunch of grad transfers from the portal — and there’s a little bit of that.
“What it really was is a bunch of grad transfers who stayed at Notre Dame. And so, I think Stiff’s got the right formula. Get some high school kids who really are coming to Notre Dame for the right reasons and see if you can get them to stick around when they’re older players and really are ready to thrive in college baseball.”
And yet the dynamics of college baseball are about to change, especially economically, so can Notre Dame keep all that young talent from hitting the transfer portal?
“What we have now is not NIL. It’s pay to play,” Rooney said. “So, I doubt very many baseball programs are going to get revenue-share dollars [in the coming economic structure]' or significant ones, because most of the schools that are elite in baseball are really chasing it in football and basketball.
“I had an athletic director tell me, ‘Every dollar I give to the baseball program, which I care about, my football and basketball coaches are going to lose their minds.’ Like that puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
“I think where Notre Dame could, if they choose to, really help Stiff is increase the scholarships. If they increase scholarships and just a little bit of NIL money, I think the Notre Dame player, the athlete, understands that the real money — if you’re going to be a professional athlete — is in the draft and in your pro career. The real money’s not in college baseball revenue-sharing.”
But Rooney admits nobody knows exactly what the economics will look like — just what the theories are.
“Where we stand today, it’s the wild, wild west,” he said, “and you do have ridiculous amounts of money thrown around. But I don’t think that’s going to last unless I’m misreading the marketplace and the changes.
“What I do know is these kids picked Notre Dame in the first place for a reason. And in the new world, I think there will be good reasons to stay.”
ACC BASEBALL STANDINGS
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