University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Youngsters Boost Bullpen
June 8, 2011 | Baseball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
June 8, 2011
By Adam Lucas
Andrew Smith sat in the Boshamer Stadium dugout on a steamy Tuesday afternoon and thought back over his freshman season. He was trying to identify the toughest situation he'd faced on the mound all season, and there were plenty of options.
The rookie righty has faced the nation's top-ranked team, Virginia. He's thrown in the ACC Tournament against Miami, and on back-to-back days on the road at Georgia Tech.
But Smith's thoughts took him all the way back to the third game of the season, to the season opener against Missouri, in a game played in Los Angeles. In that game, Smith was the first man out of the bullpen with the Tar Heels trailing 2-0 and runners on second and third.
"I got out there and I had no idea what it would be like in my first college outing," Smith says. "It ended up that Seth (Baldwin) caught a pop fly and threw the runner out at home. That reinforced to how different it was from high school. Because in college, my defense is going to be strong behind me. I can make a bad pitch and not worry about it quite as much, because the defense will help me out."
There haven't been many bad pitches for a trio of freshman Tar Heels out of the bullpen, all of whom were tossed into tough situations immediately on the opening road swing to California.
Against Southern Cal, lefthander Tate Parrish was brought in to face just one man--but that one hitter was star Ricky Oropesa, a third-round pick of the San Francisco Giants this week. Parrish, in just his second college outing, picked up an eighth-inning strikeout of Oropesa with the tying run on second base.
Righty Shane Taylor, meanwhile, had picked up two key outs in the seventh inning in a one-run game at Cal State Fullerton in the season opener, then earned the win with a scoreless 1.2 innings at Southern Cal.
With that kind of early exposure, it's no surprise that the youngsters continue to dominate the bullpen. This year's relief corps have been built in a very different way than some of the past standout Carolina teams. This season, seven Tar Heels have made at least 22 appearances. In the previous two seasons combined, only six UNC relievers made at least 22 appearances, and no Tar Heel team since at least 1999 had more than six relievers with at least 22 outings.
Past squads had one dominant power arm in the bullpen--Andrew Carignan or Rob Wooten or Brian Moran--who was trusted with all the key outs. Sophomore Michael Morin has evolved into the 2011 closer, but Mike Fox and pitching coach Scott Forbes are likely to rely on a revolving door of pitchers to create the most favorable matchups in the middle to late innings before turning a game over to Morin.
Six of the seven pitchers with big appearance numbers are freshmen or sophomores--including those three freshmen. All three earned key outs in last weekend's NCAA Regional, including a Parrish strikeout of fourth-round Indians draft pick Jake Lowery that was reminiscent of his earlier work against Oropesa.
By now, big situations have almost become routine to the relievers. They still go to do-everything senior Greg Holt for advice--"He's been here forever, so I know I can talk to him about anything," Smith says--but they've also been through most tribulations first-hand. They know they'll face one of this season's most difficult opponents in this weekend's super-regional against Stanford (tickets are now available to the public), but they also know they've had exposure to plenty of other dangerous hitters.
"The postseason really didn't feel that different," Taylor said after getting big outs against James Madison. "That's the great thing about ACC play. It prepares you, because we play good teams and we're playing in pressure situations. That's why I think I felt so comfortable out there in the postseason."
Smith and Taylor have both made spot starts this year, and both have also been through stretches--like every college freshman--where have struggled. As Fox constantly says, however, he often learns more when freshmen struggle than when they succeed. And as they prepare to pitch in the biggest games of their college careers, the youngsters believe the constant battle for innings has been beneficial in helping them minimize their slumps.
"It really helps that we're all fighting for a job," Smith says. "The competition in the bullpen helps all of us, because it makes us all better. Even today, I still feel like I'm fighting for a job."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
