Baseball: Pitching staff helps Warriors get off to a strong start (04-17-07)
By Craig Juer (Daily Staff Writer)
STEPHENS CITY — To both its detriment and benefit, Sherando's Northwestern District games have become regularly scheduled occurrences of the baseball spectacle known as the pitchers duel.
The Warriors' staff, without a statistical outlier in its ranks, has posted a tidy 1.08 earned-run average in 11 games this season. But despite yielding barely more than a single run per seven innings, Sherando's record stands at 8-3 — including an even 3-3 in the district. That's because the rotation — consisting of senior Billy Koelker, junior Tyler Simmers and sophomore Nick Merchant — gets nearly 10 more runs of support per game in nondistrict contests (13.4 runs per game) than against Northwestern opponents (3.7 runs per game).
The manic-depressive Sherando offense has scored at least 11 runs in each of five nondistrict games — wins over Clarke County (17-0 and 14-4), Briar Woods (13-1 and 12-2) and Hedgesville (11-4). But losses to Liberty (2-0), Handley (4-2) and Central (4-2) have wasted a pair of starts by Simmers and one by Koelker.
"We've probably let at least two, if not all three of our losses, slip away when we've had what we considered to be solid pitching performances because we either didn't give them some run support or we let them down a little bit defensively," Sherando coach Pepper Martin said after practice Monday. "We're six runs from being undefeated."
The theories behind the power outages range from the mundane to the introspective. Martin said he thinks it's just a difference in competition.
"No knock on the nondistrict teams we've played this far, but their pitching staffs are not as comparable to the ones we're seeing in the district," he said. "We're seeing tougher pitching."
Koelker, on the other hand, thinks the Warriors' psychological approach changes when the names on the schedule are bolded.
"I think a lot of it has to do with our mentality going into a game," he said. "Nondistrict games, we sort of have a relaxed attitude about it, and then we're all just real tight about the district games.
"It's like we go up there thinking too much and not actually just going up there and hitting. We need to relax a little bit I think, and go up there and hit like we know we can hit."
To the hurlers' enormous credit, the drop in run production against district foes has not been accompanied by a commensurate surge in their own runs allowed. The Sherando pitchers and fielders have allowed just 1.8 runs per game in the Northwestern District, compared with 2.2 in the other five games. Without sterling efforts from Simmers against Warren County (a 5-0 win) on March 27 and Koelker against Millbrook on April 4 (a 3-1 win), the Warriors could be at the bottom of the standings.
"It's put more pressure on our pitching staff, but they've responded," Martin said. "Simmers is 2-2 and he's pitched well enough to be 4-0. Billy's 2-1, and he's pitched well enough to be 3-0."
Koelker, who sports an 0.72 ERA, throws a sharp curveball both for strikes and out of the zone, and has the liveliest fastball on the staff. Simmers, who gives up 0.98 earned runs per seven innings, boasts the standard fastball/curveball/change-up repertoire but also has a dazzling split-finger — his "out" pitch — in his holster. Third starter Nick Merchant (3-0, 3.18 ERA) relies on a strong curveball and a heavy fastball, and primary reliever Jonathan Painter (0.98 ERA in 9.2 innings pitched) has struck out 11 batters against just one walk. Under the tutelage of first-year Sherando pitching coach Jimmy Dix, the four have emerged as the biggest reason the Warriors will be among the favorites at the district tournament in mid-May.
"We had a solid pitching staff last year, but I'll tell you what, it wasn't as deep," Martin said. "It didn't progress as far, and that's attributed to coach Dix. We're really blessed to have him on the staff because he's just so knowledgeable in the science of pitching."
Dix, who's a rookie pitching coach only in terms of his Sherando tenure, said he's in his 50th year coaching high school players. He worked with Martin at James Wood in the early '90s, and has coached at Handley since then. Martin said Dix gives the staff the attention they deserve.
"[In the past], the pitchers were pretty much on their own and got a little neglected," Martin said. "Every day in practice, he's giving them individualized attention and drills, and working on their mechanics. I've seen a tremendous improvement in our staff from the best pitcher to our number six or number seven."
The pitchers who round out the staff — Tommy Lekas, Ross Metheny and Zach Mason — have yet to surrender any earned runs in limited duty. The Warriors have not allowed more than four runs in any single game this season. But in order to beat some of the other district teams, many of which also have the luxury of strong pitching, Sherando's bats will have to wake up.
"We haven't been bunching [hits] together. That's when you get a big inning. You get a walk, hit by a pitch, error, bunt, have about two or three hits, and there you have four or five runs. We've been lacking those types of innings this year, but we're still working at it," Martin said. "This is the first time in as long as I can remember that, as a coaching staff, we have been tinkering with, juggling our offensive lineup. Usually by the fourth or fifth game, we know what one through nine are, basically."
Simmers said he doesn't foresee the scoring woes becoming a lingering problem.
"In a district game there's more pressure on us to go out there and score runs and to win the game," he said "I think it was just earlier in the season and our offense was struggling a little bit. But down the road, I think we're going to be fine. We're starting to hit the ball a little bit.
"We feel we can run the table. We can win the regular season."
