Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
WVU’s Gonzalez Mr. Dependable
May 30, 2019 02:44 PM | Baseball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Can you imagine driving across the mountains through Cumberland, Maryland, in the wintertime on Interstate 68 without a good set of snow tires?
That's about how West Virginia coach Randy Mazey feels whenever senior catcher Ivan Gonzalez is not crouched behind home plate.
Gonzalez has been Mazey's security blanket from really the moment he stepped on campus in 2015, and soon he is going to leave as one of the school career leaders in games played … as a catcher, mind you!
It's been remarkable what Gonzalez has been able to accomplish, and it's no coincidence that West Virginia has been able to accomplish some pretty remarkable things the last three years with Ivan in the lineup.
Two NCAA Tournament appearances, 41 Big 12 wins including tournament games, and spending the last month in a half in college baseball's top 25 are just some of the boxes this team has been able to check since 2017 with Gonzalez as its regular catcher.
"Our catching philosophy at West Virginia is it's your job to make sure the pitcher throws good that day and that's what he does," Mazey said Thursday morning on the eve of the Mountaineers' NCAA Tournament opener against Fordham on Friday night. "When we recruited Pudge, you see the same pitcher throw to two different catchers and the day he throws the best is usually because of the catcher."
His teammates affectionately refer to him as "Pudge" for good reason - any average-height person has no trouble looking him right in the eye. He's generously listed at 5-9 in the media guide, but he's probably closer to 5-7, which is why all of Power 5 schools in his native Texas took a pass on him.
"I thank Coach Mazey all the time because he gave me a chance to play at a big school in a Power 5 conference and gave me a chance to beat up on all of those Texas schools that passed on me," Gonzalez said.
But standing 5-9 (or 5-7) and playing that small are two entirely different things, and Pudge clearly plays much taller than his actual height.
"He was a special catcher from the day we saw him and the day we recruited him," Mazey remarked. "He's just a special personality; great energy and the kids love him. He's everybody's best friend and hey, oh by the way, he throws out just about everybody who tries to steal.
"He's just been rock-solid for us back there. It's not easy to do what he's done. He caught every game in the conference tournament, caught two games in one day, and that wears on you over time, so you've got to try and manage his rest as much as you can," Mazey said.
"I never take a day off," Gonzalez said. "I love being out there."
When he's out there, which has been just about every inning since backup catcher Paul McIntosh banged up his shoulder during the Texas series, Gonzalez provides a calming presence for the pitchers and his ability to throw out base runners is virtually unmatched in the Big 12, which should come in handy tomorrow night against Fordham's impressive running game.
Gonzalez is also one of the team's most reliable hitters when he is standing next to the plate. The fact that's he's got a .303 career batting average in 208 career games makes him one of West Virginia's most valuable performers.
"His value from day one was defensively for us and for him to be as good an offensive player as he is just makes him that much more special of a player," Mazey said.
In fact, Gonzalez has been so valuable to Mazey that he will afford Pudge a luxury few other players in the program are afforded.
"Sometimes you will see Pudge, if he hits a fly ball to center field, he's not running 100 percent from home to first base like Brandon White. Pudge has earned that right over his career," Mazey explained. "He's got a lot of stock in the company, so to speak, because he's earned the right to rest when he needs to rest."
Rest assured, Gonzalez is not seeking any time off this weekend. The top-seeded Mountaineers have an opportunity to do something they have never accomplished as a program – advance to a Super Regional.
It won't be easy though, with Texas A&M, Duke and Fordham here in Morgantown standing in the way, but having Pudge Gonzalez behind home plate handling West Virginia's talented pitching staff gives the Mountaineers a fighter's chance.
Game time for Friday night's NCAA Tournament opener against Fordham is 8 p.m., and the contest will be televised nationally on ESPN3.
The regional opener between Texas A&M and Duke will get underway at 4 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2. There are no tickets remaining for any of the NCAA games in Morgantown this weekend.
Briefly:
* Mazey indicated earlier this week that junior lefthander Nick Snyder will get the baseball tomorrow night against Fordham in the NCAA Tournament opener. Snyder was the Mountaineer's midweek stopper this year, posting an 8-1 record in those games before earning his first Big 12 start against Kansas in the first game of the Big 12 Tournament.
Snyder allowed seven earned runs on seven hits in 4.2 innings, but bounced back two days later to strike out seven Oklahoma State batters and allow just one hit in three scoreless innings in the conference championship game.
"That was super important," Mazey said. "That was part of the reason why we started him in the championship game because he had been so good all year and you kind of felt like he hit a speed bump against Kansas. To get him back out there, and the small mechanical adjustment that he made to get back on track, was super important for him to throw really good against Oklahoma State.
"That was good for his confidence and mine."
Ace Alek Manoah will be available to start Saturday's game. Mazey said he began thinking about how he wanted to line up his postseason pitching rotation a few weeks before the end of the regular season when it was clear the Mountaineers were going to make the NCAA Tournament.
"Nick Snyder has been so good in the midweek games for us and his turn fell on Wednesday at the start of the conference tournament, and then we rolled him out in the Big 12 championship game on a limited pitch count. So we prepared him to pitch this game for the last two or three weeks. I've got all of the faith in the world in Nick Snyder. I wouldn't be sitting at this table today without Nick Snyder."
Beyond that, Mazey said he will use all of his best pitchers to try and win the regional.
"The thing you've got to be careful of is you don't want to go through a tournament like this and not use your best guys," he explained. "A lot of people get caught up in trying to save a guy for a particular team or a particular game and all of a sudden the tournament is over and you didn't even use them.
"To win a regional you've got to win one game at a time, so we're going to throw our best bullets at them in game one and whatever happens, we'll see what game two brings," he said.
Mazey was non-committal on his pitching plans should the Mountaineers go beyond two games.
* Mazey brought up his college coach at Clemson, Bill Wilhelm, when discussing his coaching philosophies. "He was my mentor in this business and his philosophy was to recruit great athletes, teach them how to play the game, but don't over coach them and stifle their athleticism," he said. "I make sure myself or none of my guys are standing over their shoulders talking to them between every pitch and every at bat."
* In the old days, advance scouting in college baseball was essentially a matter of taking an extra-long look at the stat sheet to get an idea of who can steal bases, who hits for power and which pitchers strike out the most batters.
The really resourceful coaches might even get one of their coaching buddies on the telephone to run through the other team's lineup.
That's clearly not the case today.
"With technology, we can literally watch just about every game they've played and we get a lot of our scouting stuff from that," Mazey said. "It's amazing the work that my assistant coaches put in watching video. I'm the guy calling the pitches so I watch a lot of video, too, so you get a much better idea these days than in the old days when you had to call around and talk to the people who played against them.
"I think we've got a really good feel for who they are and that's why it worries you a little bit because watching them on video you know how good they are."
That's about how West Virginia coach Randy Mazey feels whenever senior catcher Ivan Gonzalez is not crouched behind home plate.
Gonzalez has been Mazey's security blanket from really the moment he stepped on campus in 2015, and soon he is going to leave as one of the school career leaders in games played … as a catcher, mind you!
It's been remarkable what Gonzalez has been able to accomplish, and it's no coincidence that West Virginia has been able to accomplish some pretty remarkable things the last three years with Ivan in the lineup.
Two NCAA Tournament appearances, 41 Big 12 wins including tournament games, and spending the last month in a half in college baseball's top 25 are just some of the boxes this team has been able to check since 2017 with Gonzalez as its regular catcher.
"Our catching philosophy at West Virginia is it's your job to make sure the pitcher throws good that day and that's what he does," Mazey said Thursday morning on the eve of the Mountaineers' NCAA Tournament opener against Fordham on Friday night. "When we recruited Pudge, you see the same pitcher throw to two different catchers and the day he throws the best is usually because of the catcher."
His teammates affectionately refer to him as "Pudge" for good reason - any average-height person has no trouble looking him right in the eye. He's generously listed at 5-9 in the media guide, but he's probably closer to 5-7, which is why all of Power 5 schools in his native Texas took a pass on him.
"I thank Coach Mazey all the time because he gave me a chance to play at a big school in a Power 5 conference and gave me a chance to beat up on all of those Texas schools that passed on me," Gonzalez said.
But standing 5-9 (or 5-7) and playing that small are two entirely different things, and Pudge clearly plays much taller than his actual height.
"He was a special catcher from the day we saw him and the day we recruited him," Mazey remarked. "He's just a special personality; great energy and the kids love him. He's everybody's best friend and hey, oh by the way, he throws out just about everybody who tries to steal.
"He's just been rock-solid for us back there. It's not easy to do what he's done. He caught every game in the conference tournament, caught two games in one day, and that wears on you over time, so you've got to try and manage his rest as much as you can," Mazey said.
"I never take a day off," Gonzalez said. "I love being out there."
When he's out there, which has been just about every inning since backup catcher Paul McIntosh banged up his shoulder during the Texas series, Gonzalez provides a calming presence for the pitchers and his ability to throw out base runners is virtually unmatched in the Big 12, which should come in handy tomorrow night against Fordham's impressive running game.
Gonzalez is also one of the team's most reliable hitters when he is standing next to the plate. The fact that's he's got a .303 career batting average in 208 career games makes him one of West Virginia's most valuable performers.
"His value from day one was defensively for us and for him to be as good an offensive player as he is just makes him that much more special of a player," Mazey said.
In fact, Gonzalez has been so valuable to Mazey that he will afford Pudge a luxury few other players in the program are afforded.
"Sometimes you will see Pudge, if he hits a fly ball to center field, he's not running 100 percent from home to first base like Brandon White. Pudge has earned that right over his career," Mazey explained. "He's got a lot of stock in the company, so to speak, because he's earned the right to rest when he needs to rest."
Rest assured, Gonzalez is not seeking any time off this weekend. The top-seeded Mountaineers have an opportunity to do something they have never accomplished as a program – advance to a Super Regional.
It won't be easy though, with Texas A&M, Duke and Fordham here in Morgantown standing in the way, but having Pudge Gonzalez behind home plate handling West Virginia's talented pitching staff gives the Mountaineers a fighter's chance.
Game time for Friday night's NCAA Tournament opener against Fordham is 8 p.m., and the contest will be televised nationally on ESPN3.
The regional opener between Texas A&M and Duke will get underway at 4 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2. There are no tickets remaining for any of the NCAA games in Morgantown this weekend.
Briefly:
* Mazey indicated earlier this week that junior lefthander Nick Snyder will get the baseball tomorrow night against Fordham in the NCAA Tournament opener. Snyder was the Mountaineer's midweek stopper this year, posting an 8-1 record in those games before earning his first Big 12 start against Kansas in the first game of the Big 12 Tournament.
Snyder allowed seven earned runs on seven hits in 4.2 innings, but bounced back two days later to strike out seven Oklahoma State batters and allow just one hit in three scoreless innings in the conference championship game.
"That was super important," Mazey said. "That was part of the reason why we started him in the championship game because he had been so good all year and you kind of felt like he hit a speed bump against Kansas. To get him back out there, and the small mechanical adjustment that he made to get back on track, was super important for him to throw really good against Oklahoma State.
"That was good for his confidence and mine."
Ace Alek Manoah will be available to start Saturday's game. Mazey said he began thinking about how he wanted to line up his postseason pitching rotation a few weeks before the end of the regular season when it was clear the Mountaineers were going to make the NCAA Tournament.
"Nick Snyder has been so good in the midweek games for us and his turn fell on Wednesday at the start of the conference tournament, and then we rolled him out in the Big 12 championship game on a limited pitch count. So we prepared him to pitch this game for the last two or three weeks. I've got all of the faith in the world in Nick Snyder. I wouldn't be sitting at this table today without Nick Snyder."
Beyond that, Mazey said he will use all of his best pitchers to try and win the regional.
"The thing you've got to be careful of is you don't want to go through a tournament like this and not use your best guys," he explained. "A lot of people get caught up in trying to save a guy for a particular team or a particular game and all of a sudden the tournament is over and you didn't even use them.
"To win a regional you've got to win one game at a time, so we're going to throw our best bullets at them in game one and whatever happens, we'll see what game two brings," he said.
Mazey was non-committal on his pitching plans should the Mountaineers go beyond two games.
* Mazey brought up his college coach at Clemson, Bill Wilhelm, when discussing his coaching philosophies. "He was my mentor in this business and his philosophy was to recruit great athletes, teach them how to play the game, but don't over coach them and stifle their athleticism," he said. "I make sure myself or none of my guys are standing over their shoulders talking to them between every pitch and every at bat."
* In the old days, advance scouting in college baseball was essentially a matter of taking an extra-long look at the stat sheet to get an idea of who can steal bases, who hits for power and which pitchers strike out the most batters.
The really resourceful coaches might even get one of their coaching buddies on the telephone to run through the other team's lineup.
That's clearly not the case today.
"With technology, we can literally watch just about every game they've played and we get a lot of our scouting stuff from that," Mazey said. "It's amazing the work that my assistant coaches put in watching video. I'm the guy calling the pitches so I watch a lot of video, too, so you get a much better idea these days than in the old days when you had to call around and talk to the people who played against them.
"I think we've got a really good feel for who they are and that's why it worries you a little bit because watching them on video you know how good they are."
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