The Vanderbilt Commodores open the 2018 baseball season today at Hawkins Field with the first of a three-game series against the Duke Blue Devils. The Commodores open the season ranked 14th in the D1baseball.com Top 25, while Duke is ranked 25th.
Last season, the Blue Devils went 30-28 and just 12-18 in the ACC, but they return eight starting position players and all three starting pitchers, so improvement is expected. The Blue Devils will throw sophomore lefthander Adam Laskey in the season opener. Laskey went 4-5 last season with a 6.83 ERA and had 48 strikeouts to 24 walks in 55.