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New year, same expectations
Penguin baseball set to begin 2011 season
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
YSU baseball coach Rich Pasquale is the type of guy who can step in a puddle and think, “Good, that will get rid of the dirt on the bottom of my shoe.”
So, not surprisingly, he views starting this season with 17 straight road games as a positive, since it’ll get his team ready for the conference grind.
He shrugs off losing seven of his top nine hitters to graduation — including Horizon League player of the year Tom Clayton — since it’ll give some other players a chance to step up.
And he doesn’t care if he lost 13 letterwinners from a sixth-place team; his goal this spring hasn’t changed.
“Every year it has to be the conference,” Pasquale said. “We’ve got to win the conference.
“That’s the expectation.”
To reach that goal, Pasquale will turn to a mix of veterans and younger players who can hopefully replace the production of all-conference players such as pitcher Aaron Swenson (the 2008 Horizon League pitcher of the year who signed with the Orioles’ minor league system last summer), infielder Jacke Healey (a 27th round pick by the Astros who set YSU’s single-season record for homers with 12 last season) and pitcher/outfielder Eric Marzec (a 30th-round pick by the Brewers).
Of the team’s top nine hitters from last season, only two return — outfielder Joe Iacobucci (one of four Boardman High graduates on the roster) and first basemen Jeremy Banks.
“We’ve replaced [our lost hitters] in a different way,” Pasquale said. “We may not have the power, although we’ll still have some power with Joe Iacobucci and Jeremy Banks. And we’re hoping to get some more power from [infielders] Greg Dissinger and Drew Dosch. So the power can still be there, it’ll just come from different guys.
“Hitting 60 home runs [as a team] last year was pretty nice, but I think we have guys who can do some good things in other ways that we’ll be able to get around that.”
Senior Phil Klein is the top returning pitcher, one of four returning starters. Klein went 2-4 with a 6.51 ERA in 65 innings, while sophomore Kevin McCulloh went 1-5 with a 4.96 ERA in 522/3 innings.
Those numbers should be lower this year as college baseball teams adapt to a new aluminum bat that’s designed to perform more like wood.
The “BB Core” bat — which stands for Ball-Bat Coefficient of Restitution — cuts down on exit speeds, which is designed to make the game safer and eliminate the cheap hits that come from composite bats, which were blamed for the rise in collegiate home runs in recent years.
High school teams will start using the bats next spring.
“When you square up on one, it’s still going to go,” Pasquale said. “What you won’t have is those dinky little hits over second [base]. Those are just going to be outs.”
College teams will also start using a pitch clock in an effort to speed up the game. Pitchers will now have just 20 seconds between pitches with no runners on base.
If he goes over the time, a ball will be added. Batters who step out of the box within five seconds of the clock expiring will have a strike added to the count.
The Southeastern Conference tested the clock during their tournament last season and cut the average game from 3 hours, 17 minutes in 2009 to 2 hours, 43 minutes in 2010.
“We’ve done it all fall to get our guys prepared,” Pasquale said. “Even our slowest guy who really goes through things is fine. He’s around 16-17 seconds.”
YSU begins its season on Friday at East Carolina, the first of 17 straight road games.
The Penguins play Penn State-Behrend in their home opener on March 23 at Eastwood Field, then play seven of their next nine on the road, including a three-game series starting March 25 against Wright State that opens the Horizon League schedule.
That schedule is driven mainly by necessity — Ohio’s weather, you might have noticed, isn’t very good in February and March — but Pasquale sees an added benefit.
It gives his team a chance to compete against higher-profile programs such as Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, which (he hopes) will give his team confidence heading into league games.
“It’s a pretty special group,” he said. “They’ve been working hard and they know what the expectations are.”