What a play! Pitcher Alek Manoah with the barehanded grab and then doubles up the runner at first base. We'll see that one later! #SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/SqbUhlVDjv

— WVU Baseball (@WVUBaseball) April 5, 2017

West Virginia’s baseball team went on the road last month and lost two out of three to Old Dominion, including its third walk-off loss of the season, and settled in at 8-7.

The Mountaineers are 17-10 today. On Wednesday, five pitchers handcuffed Morehead State in a 5-1 win. And before you say, “Morehead State. So what?” understand Morehead State was 22-6 with nine straight wins and 17 wins in the past 18, because the Eagles rake.

So Rand Mazey flips the 108 seams to Alek Manoah, who we’ve talked about here before and who we should probably talk about more. The freshman from Miami, Mazey once said, “has the chance to be one of the best players to ever play at West Virginia as both a pitcher and a hitter.”

He got 11 outs on a night when Mazey knew he’d need four or five arms, and Manoah had a superb double play. He left with the bases loaded, and Cody Wood, a freshman making his first appearance, got out of it on one pitch. Morehead State’s only run came on a balk, and Mazey did not agree with the call that came after Wood picked off the runner on first base. (By the way, Manoah has pitched in 10 games now. He has a 0.77 ERA in 11.2 innings and has saved two games.)

This 12-game run and 9-3 record for WVU includes series wins at ranked Baylor and Oklahoma State. The first 15 games? Well, the Mountaineers did beat the defending champion, Coastal Carolina, twice, and Southeastern Louisiana, which took two of three from WVU, is pretty good. But bats were slower then than they are now. WVU’s outscored the past 12 opponents 72-59. The spread was 93-77 in the first 15 games. The first 16 games include a 22-run game against Coastal Carolina and 18 runs at Tulane. The past 12 includes more consistent offense and five games with eight or more runs.

The lineup is finally falling into place. Marques Inman is the team’s leading hitter. He suffered a season-ending injury in the 16th game. A couple of players were in or exiting a funk right around then. It was bad timing.

Mazey isn’t going to pencil the same nine names into the same nine spots very often, especially in mid-week games — he has options, after all — but he’s found something with Kyle Gray batting leadoff with a .174 batting average but a .352 on-base percentage. Ivan Rodriguez (formerly Ivan Vera) has lifted his average to .294 and might be at home at No. 2, and that’s moved Kyle Davis to a more favorable spot in the lineup. He drives the ball, which is better for the Nos. 4, 5 or 6 slots than the No. 2. But he, too, had a slide and now has his average to a more recognizable .281, and he batted cleanup Wednesday. Cole Austin and Jackson Cramer have been steady middle-of-the-order bats, and the bottom of the lineup draws walks and makes contact and bunts and generally makes for hard outs.

It’s working, and it better. This weekend, WVU plays its first Big 12 home series. It’s against Kansas. But after that, the Mountaineers, 6-2 against ranked teams and No. 9 in the dang RPI, get TCU, Oklahoma and Texas Tech at home this season. That’s Nos, 3, 16 and 6 in the top 25.