GRANVILLE — As J.J. Wetherholt walked out of the West Virginia dugout Wednesday — already with four hits under his belt — he turned to teammate Austin Davis, who somehow saw the future.
“It was actually pretty funny, because I went up to A.D. and asked, ‘Do you think I can get five hits today?’ ” the WVU third baseman said. “He said since I said that he guaranteed I would get walked.”
Of course that’s what happened, as Wetherholt took the bases-loaded walk to drive in his third run of the game in what was a 17-8 victory against Marshall at Mon County Ballpark.
Still, four hits weren’t bad, especially considering the freshman had just one in last weekend’s three-game series win against TCU.
And that seems to be the thing with Wetherholt, according to WVU head coach Randy Mazey, it matters little if the freshman is struggling or thriving at the plate, because his approach is consistent.
“His approach never changes. That’s the beauty of J.J.,” Mazey said. “He’s got the same approach, no matter who we’re playing, what the score is or what time of day it is. He’s got a great approach at the plate and he does it against great pitching and righties or lefties.”
Wetherholt’s day raised his batting average 24 points to .320 to go along with 21 RBIs in 27 games.
“I try to stay locked in with every at-bat possible,” he said. “It’s always pretty much been trying to hit a line drive over the shortstop and staying up the middle. I don’t want to get pull happy.”
The Mountaineers (17-10) tied a season high with the 17 runs, which was the most the program has scored in a game since 2017, when WVU scored 22 against Coastal Carolina.
Despite Wetherholt’s performance and the 17 runs, it was not the greatest display of baseball. The game took nearly four hours to play, while both teams combined to use 17 pitchers.
The Mountaineers used 10, three just to get out of the third inning in which Marshall (13-16-1) took an early 4-0 lead.
Only four of WVU’s 10 pitchers were in the game long enough to record at least three outs or more.
“We had to throw a lot of different guys today,” Mazey said.
Not that WVU’s pitchers were aware of that fact.
“I don’t tell them that,” Mazey said. “If they go out there knowing they’re only going to pitch an inning, or two, you don’t get much out of them.”
The Thundering Herd didn’t get much out of their seven pitchers, who combined for nine walks, six wild pitches and four hit batters.
WVU scored three consecutive runs on wild pitches in the seventh inning to take a comfortable 14-4 lead, but its biggest moment came in the fourth.
Trailing 4-1, the Mountaineers came back after Marshall pulled off a double play and rattled off six hits and two walks to score seven runs, all with two outs in the inning.
Tevin Tucker tripled and Wetherholt and Mikey Kluska doubled in that inning.
“We had the momentum with first and second and no outs and all of a sudden (Grant) Hussey gets doubled off and you think, “Oh man, the inning is over,’ ” Mazey said. “We rapped out seven or eight hits, which was pretty impressive. Nobody panicked.”
Davis added three hits and two RBIs and McGwire Holbrook added two hits and two RBIs for the Mountaineers, who host Baylor in a three-game series that begins at 6:30 p.m. Friday.
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