The Hickory Crawdads manager is blessed with overwhelming talent and lets 12 South Atlantic League teams know it by regularly beating the daylights out of them.

But the problem is, there are 14 teams in the SAL. And that 14th, the Weevils, have Loviglio’s number.

The numbers on Tuesday: a 12-5 Boll Weevil thrashing of the Crawdads, bringing Hickory’s record against Greg Legg’s team to a dismal 2-8.

“You play a tough ballgame and the other team has an opportunity to collapse,” Loviglio said. “We haven’t given Piedmont the chance to do that. We collapse first.”

And that’s why Piedmont (51-26, 4-2) leads the Northern Division and why Hickory has fallen to 3-3 (39-38 overall).

Perhaps even more frustrating for Loviglio was the star of Piedmont’s Tuesday afternoon laugher. He can take getting beat by Nate Espy or Marlon Byrd or Jay Sitzman or Russ Jacobson. They’re SALall-stars, one and all.

But this time, the Weevil that haunted Loviglio with four hits, three runs scored, a homer and two RBIs was Jeremy Deitrick.

Jeremy who?

That’s Jeremy Deitrick, Jacobson’s backup at catcher. He received a rare start and made Legg look like a genius.

Oh, the all-stars did their part. Sitzman scored two runs, Byrd knocked in two and Espy clouted his league-leading 19th homer, while driving in three runs.

But Deitrick took center stage. He — and Legg — loved every minute of it.

“In the last 10 days or so, Jeremy has worked hard on all of his game, catching, hitting, and it’s nice for him to be rewarded for his efforts in the game,” Legg said.

In turn, Deitrick rewarded starting pitcher Frankie Brooks, who did not have his best outing but produced 62

Just something else that irked Loviglio.

“We were aware Piedmont had been using its pitching a lot,” he said. “They used a spot starter (Franklin Perez in Monday’s 5-3 win) and we wanted Brooksie to throw a lot of pitches today. We should’ve taken control, but we didn’t.”

Hickory’s best chance came in the second when it loaded the bases with no outs but couldn’t score.

The Crawdads did take a 1-0 lead in the third but a Jeff Bennett balk led to Buzz Hannahan’s two-out RBIsingle in the bottom half.

Then, in the fourth, Piedmont exploded for eight runs, thanks to an early error that got things going. The rally knocked Bennett (7-6) out of the game.

Brian Hitchcox and Deitrick had RBI singles for a 3-1 lead. Hitchcox scored on a sacrifice fly by Ambirorix Reyes by hook-sliding around Ron Paulino. A wild pitch scored Shomari Beverly. Byrd then smacked a run-scoring single, followed by Espy’s two-run blast that went over the locker rooms in left.

Deitrick then made it 10-1 with a solo homer, his second of the season, in the fifth.

“It’s been an up-and-down year,” admitted Deitrick, who spent a month on the disabled list, not because of injury but because of the numbers game. “It was downsizing. It was tough to deal with mentally but I kept a positive attitude and tried to help when I was in there.”

Legg remembers. “We had many conversations because Jeremy wanted to come off the DL. I’d tell him, ‘Just wait for your chance.’”

Staked to a nine-run lead, Brooks began tiring, giving up two homers in the sixth. He left anything but satisfied.

“When you’ve got a big lead, you’re supposed to throw strikes and let your defense make outs for you,” he scoffed. “I didn’t have my good stuff today.”

“It was a hot day and he had a couple of long innings,” said Deitrick, who orchestrated the win behind the plate. “There was down-time between innings because we were scoring so he might not have been totally loose.”

The only fresh arm left in the bullpen, Elio Serrano, came on and closed out the victory, allowing two hits in 21

“Piedmont’s got a 3.00 ERA, for cryin’ out loud,” shrugged Loviglio. “You get to their bullpen and they ain’t got a guy over 3.00.”

Just for good measure, Deitrick got his fourth hit in the seventh and eventually scored on Hickory’s third error of the game. He walked off the field, cheered by the fans and seemingly in dreamland.

For Loviglio and the Crawdads, it was just another nightmare to try and forget.