With our upcoming weekend series against Wake Forest, I plan to do a Wake Forest player preview later this week but thought it would be of interest to see how we stack up at a team level looking at various hitting, pitching and fielding stats. The tables below provide the data, but here are a few notes of analysis to summarize: • The matchup against Wake Forest will feature two of the top five offensive teams in the ACC. Wake Forest ranks 3rd in conference play in OBP, SLG, OPS and Runs per Game while VT ranks 5th in conference play in those same metrics. • Pitching will be a big advantage for Wake Forest as they are top 5 in the ACC in ERA (5th in all games, 4th in conference games) and WHIP (4th in all games and conference games) while Virginia Tech is below average in ERA (9th in all games, 13th in conference games) and in the bottom third in WHIP (12th in all games, 13th in conference games). One pitching area that Wake Forest struggles with is command (which VT also does), where they are 10th in the ACC in conference games in walks per game (4.9) and are 12th in the ACC in conference games in wild pitches per game (1.2). Another thing to watch will be home runs given up. Both pitching staffs have been good in conference play with not giving up too many home runs (Wake Forest is 1st with 0.6 per game, VT is 5th with 1.0 per game) but both offenses have averaged 1.8 home runs per game in ACC play so it will be interesting to see if either team can produce an advantage with the long ball. • Fielding will be something to watch during the series. Wake Forest is one of the worst defensive teams in the league as they are 15th in conference games in both errors per game (1.4) and fielding percentage (.960) and average giving up almost 1 unearned run per game. For the season, Virginia Tech has been a much better fielding team (2nd in errors per game, 5th in fielding percentage) but have been below average during ACC play (12th in both errors per game and fielding percentage). Despite our fielding struggles in ACC play, we still rank 3rd best in unearned runs per game at roughly 0.3 per game.