Cline's Just Fine
May 04, 2003 10:33 PM | General
May 4, 2003
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| Cline |
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Zac Cline was cruising along in the seventh inning of last year’s game against Notre Dame when the wheels came off.
Having just recorded the second out of the seventh inning with the Mountaineers leading 6-1, Cline lost his poise and walked the next two batters. Sensing his freshman was tiring and not wanting to destroy his confidence, Mountaineer coach Greg Van Zant went to his bullpen. A walk, a single and a home run later, Notre Dame tied the game it eventually won, 10-6.
A year later Cline was staring at a similar situation Sunday afternoon at Notre Dame.
“It was like déjà vu all over again,” he said in his best imitation of Yogi Berra.
After getting Kris Billmaier to pop out, Cline gave up back-to-back singles to bring the tying run to the plate with West Virginia leading just 3-0. The lefthander walked the next batter to load the bases.
Van Zant, having watched his budding young star work his way out of jams for a good part of the last two months, wasn’t about to take him out of this game. If West Virginia was going to win a road series against a nationally ranked team for the first time in school history, Van Zant was going to keep the saddle on his best horse. It was time for Cline to get himself out of another pickle.
Cline got Matt Bransfield to line out to center for the second out and after hitting Javi Sanchez, he was able to escape major damage by getting Greg Lopez to hit a lazy fly to right. A potential breakout inning for Notre Dame turned into just one harmless run.
“I just kind of willed myself in that situation,” Cline admitted.
Cline’s inning and his willpower may have put himself on a path to becoming one of the country’s premier left-handed pitchers.
“Other than the seventh inning, Zac really controlled the game against one of the best teams in the country,” said Van Zant.
Cline, who has already agreed to pitch in the Cape Cod League this summer, has tossed an impressive five straight complete games dating back to a 4-0 loss at Pittsburgh on April 6.
Since then, Cline has posted consecutive victories against Connecticut, Virginia Tech, Georgetown, St. John’s and now Notre Dame.
“Coming into this year there were some question marks at pitcher and I knew I was going to have to take on the responsibility of pitching more innings this year,” Cline said.
The Union City, Pa., native says the genesis for his remarkable turnaround actually came in a disappointing, 12-4 defeat to Rutgers.
“I got knocked out of the Rutgers game and I decided then that I was going to have to work through trouble and go the distance. I was able to do that against Connecticut,” Cline said.
Cline built on his Connecticut performance by tossing a masterful game against a solid Virginia Tech team, holding the Hokies to just one run on five hits.
Now three weeks later, Cline has boosted his overall record to 9-3 with an ever improving earned run average of 3.38.
Perhaps his most telling statistic is innings pitched; Cline has a staff-best 98.2 innings after Sunday’s game against Notre Dame. He is already sixth on the WVU single season list and is just 11 innings shy of Jeremy Cummings’ school record of 109.2 innings pitched in 1999. Cline has at least two regular season starts left and probably at least one more remaining in post season play.
Enabling Cline to eat up innings faster than George Forman can gobble up hamburgers is the fact that he isn’t a maximum effort power pitcher. He uses an outstanding changeup to go along with a mid-80s fastball to keep hitters off befuddled.
Cline’s effortless throwing motion has eased Van Zant’s mind about the fact that his ace pitcher is beginning to pile up some serious innings.
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| Sophomore Zac Cline leads WVU with nine victories this season. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
Van Zant, who also doubles as the team’s pitching coach, is extra sensitive about over-using his pitchers. He has taken great care in developing a reputation of not over-using his arms, almost to the point where he may actually under use them.
“I’m not interested in hurting people’s arms,” he says.
However, with an inexperienced bullpen and just nine healthy pitchers available for most of the season, Van Zant has been forced to let his starting pitchers go deeper into games. He has been able to get around this by extending their rest between starts.
Instead of the normal three or four days rest, Cline has been able to get five and sometimes six days of rest between appearances.
“Having that extra day is huge,” said Cline. “If I would have pitched yesterday it might have been a different result.”
By extending their innings, Van Zant has developed confident starting pitchers who can work out of jams. His starters have also developed the arm strength and endurance needed to last an entire game.
“Coach has given us the ball and has allowed me to stay in games. That has helped me gain the confidence I need to get people out in tough situations,” said Cline.
And Cline getting people out in tough situations is starting to get the West Virginia baseball program noticed.
The Mountaineers have received top 25 votes earlier this year and they could crack the national rankings if they can keep up their winning ways. The last time a West Virginia baseball team was nationally ranked was at the end of the 1982 baseball season.
Cline says that’s great if it happens, but he won’t be disappointed if they’re not ranked.
“We have a lot of unfinished business left,” said the sophomore. “If we get in the rankings, that’s great. If not, that will give us added incentive to just win more games.”
West Virginia will try to keep the snowball rolling next weekend against Villanova – a team that swept WVU last year in Philadelphia.
“This series will be huge,” said Cline.
Cline and his teammates say a big home crowd Sunday will be a big boost to them.
“Playing in front of a big crowd kind of pumps you up,” he says. “There were a lot of people at Notre Dame today and it was a lot of fun pitching in front of them.”
