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A Juggling Act for WVU's Mazey
May 23, 2017 08:03 PM | Baseball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - One of the trickiest things for a college baseball coach to do is figuring out how to line up his pitching for postseason play.
With West Virginia playing as recently as last Sunday at Texas, Mountaineer coach Randy Mazey has had to put considerable thought into how best to set up his rotation for this week’s Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship in Oklahoma City, but also with one eye cast toward next weekend’s NCAA Tournament.
That’s because WVU finished fourth in the No. 1-rated baseball conference in the country and presently sits around 20 in the RPI heading into Wednesday’s opening game against Baylor, meaning it’s a near certainty that West Virginia is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1996 - even though Mazey admits he is still not taking anything for granted.
He’s been left on the outside looking in too many times before.
“If you look at it objectively you have to like where we’re at right now, but I don’t ever count it until I see our name come off the board,” he said. “I’ve been in that position when I’ve gathered the team for the selection show and you never hear your name.”
Despite his trepidation, Mazey has to manage his pitching rotation as if he’s getting into the national tournament. To do that, he has to arrange things this week in Oklahoma City to give his staff enough time to be ready to go for a regional game coming up either next Thursday or Friday.
That means Mazey will begin game one on Wednesday morning with freshman Isaiah Kearns on the hill against Baylor, with usual Friday starter B.J. Myers ready to go in game two.
“It’s kind of a trick,” Mazey admitted. “If we didn’t feel really good about next weekend we’d have to attack this thing one way and we feel pretty good about getting into the tournament next weekend and that takes a lot of pressure off your pitchers. I feel pretty good about where we’re at right now, so we’re going to start Isaiah Kearns in the first game.
“He’s the most rested guy we’ve got. As you know, he pitched pretty well against Pitt in his last time out. He’s fresh and rested and ready to go,” Mazey noted.
In that Pitt game in Morgantown a week ago last Tuesday night, Kearns blanked the Panthers on three hits through 5.2 innings of work. The freshman right hander will be making his 14th appearance of the season against the Bears on Wednesday morning.
Starting Kearns in game one will keep Myers on his normal pitching schedule and it will also allow regular Saturday starter Alek Monoah to have six days of rest if he has to pitch on Friday, plus another six days of rest the following weekend in the regional.
Mazey has had to be extra careful with his young arms coming down the stretch because of the inordinate number of injuries that have hit his pitching staff this year.
Mazey saw two of his best pitchers go down during a 20-day stretch from April 2 to April 20 when Conner Dotson broke his arm warming up in the bullpen before facing Oklahoma State, and then Michael Grove left in the first inning of the Kansas State game with a strained forearm.
West Virginia was sitting in second place in the Big 12 standings with a 9-5 record when Grove got hurt. The injury list handed to Mazey has also included Jake Potock, Carter Camp, Endy Morales and even Kearns at one time or another this season.
“This has been a year unlike any other the position we’re in right now,” Mazey said. “To get where we are right now with all of the injuries, people have no idea what we’ve accomplished this year.”
Grove’s situation is much more complicated because of his future as a potential top pick in next June’s Major League Draft. Mazey said he’s still taking things day to day with his talented right hander.
“It’s going to take him a certain amount of time to come back and pitch and whenever that time frame is I hope the season is still going on,” Mazey said. “If the season is over when that happens and then we’ll look to the future. He’s too valuable a kid to put his future in jeopardy, so we’re going to take it one day at a time with him.”
Really, Mazey’s careful approach applies to his entire pitching staff because he doesn’t want to throw guys before they are ready.
“The fact that B.J. had those two rain delays that lowered his pitch count so I think that will help him right now,” Mazey said.
“He’s pitched on six days plenty of times this year because of rain or other reasons so this won’t affect him. The fact that we can throw Kearns in game one - and he’s rested - it’s really helped B.J. and Manoah,” Mazey added.
Manoah takes a little more time to recover after he pitches than Myers does, plus, his pitch efficiency is not quite where Myers’ is at this stage of his young career.
“He’s a guy that always kind of manages to run a pretty high pitch count up there,” Mazey pointed out. “We didn’t get him out to rest him (against Texas), we got him out to try and win that game.”
Nevertheless, it’s a going to be a juggling act for Mazey this week leading into next weekend, but the good news is all signs are pointing to another week of action for the Mountaineers.
And that will make this week’s Big 12 Tournament a pressure-free event for West Virginia.
“The beauty of where we are right now is we’ve got a nothing-to-lose mentality,” Mazey said. “We’ve played with a lot of confidence on this field and we’ve always played well in this atmosphere, and I don’t think our guys are going to feel any pressure to have to win every game like we’ve had in the past. I don’t know how the games are going to come out, but I think our team mentality is pretty good right now.”
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