University of North Carolina Athletics
GoHeels Exclusive: Just A Crazy Dude
June 4, 2019 | Baseball, Featured Writers
By Pat James, GoHeels.com
Around 7 p.m. on May 25, Joey Lancellotti's mind started racing.
A few hours earlier, the North Carolina baseball team had defeated Boston College, 13-5, earning a spot in the ACC Tournament championship game. Lancellotti didn't pitch against the Eagles, not after throwing 83 pitches the previous three days. For that same reason, the coaching staff didn't necessarily expect him to be ready to pitch the next day.
So, upon the team's return to Boshamer Stadium after the Boston College game, Robert Woodard told Lancellotti to get a workout in and start preparing for the NCAA Tournament. Lancellotti obliged. He then returned to his house, where a few players and their families were gathering to eat pizza and watch the ACC semifinal game between NC State and Georgia Tech.
It wasn't until then, as he watched the Wolfpack play the Yellow Jackets, that he truly realized the magnitude of the next day's game.Â
"I just started thinking, 'Oh my gosh, ACC championship. It's a big game. I want to be on the mound so bad,'" Lancellotti said. "I started getting (frustrated), like, 'I can't believe I'm not going to be out there.'"
As those thoughts started weighing on him more, Lancellotti found his father, Joseph.
"I sat next to my dad and was like, 'Dad, would you be mad at me if I pitched tomorrow?'" Lancellotti said. "And he's like, 'It's your body, you know how you feel.'"
That's all the support Lancellotti needed.Â
Minutes later, he texted Woodard, letting know him he was good to pitch. "Let's just see how you feel," Woodard responded. But given their consistent and open dialogue, Woodard knew Lancellotti was feeling well enough to pitch if he said he could. He also knew only an injury would keep Lancellotti from pitching in such a game. He's too competitive not to.
Ultimately, Lancellotti pitched 3 2/3 innings of relief in the Tar Heels' 10-2 win over Georgia Tech. The effort capped a specular tournament by the sophomore, who allowed just one run and seven hits over 8 2/3 innings. And it marked another step in his steady progression.
"The talent has always been there," Woodard said. "He's helped us win some games since he stepped foot on this campus, so it's not like (that) week was a coming-out-party for him by any means. But it definitely did have the feel that he's getting to another level."
'This kid is going to be a stud'
Gripping the end of a vacuum cleaner tube as he would a bat, Lancellotti, then just 3 years old, used to walk around his family's Bensalem, Pa., home, swinging his arms freely and knocking every item off every shelf.
His mom, Janine, first suggested getting him involved in baseball. But given his age, he couldn't play Little League yet. So Janine and Joseph bought their son a tee and a bat, with hopes of keeping him entertained and protecting their house from any damage. Over time, though, Lancellotti became obsessed with soft toss. And it was often Janine, then pregnant with Lancellotti's sister Gianna, who he was asking to play with him.
All that led Joseph to sign Lancellotti up for Little League, a feat he accomplished by convincing the local league that Lancellotti was 6.
"We got really close to my coach at the time, and he started catching on because I was still wearing diapers under my baseball pants," Lancellotti said. "But he said he wouldn't say anything, and they signed me up the next year with the same coach."
Lancellotti primarily played middle infield growing up. Eventually, he moved to outfield. By eighth grade, he said he thought he might play in college. A year later, ACC and SEC programs started expressing interest.
But even at that point, pitching in college seemed like a distant possibility.
Occasionally, Lancellotti said he would take the mound, but only when his team was running low on pitching. When he did, he was instructed to throw as hard as possible. And typically, he didn't know where each pitch was going.
"If I want to do something, I want to be good at it," said Lancellotti, who learned how to play guitar in high school by watching YouTube videos every night for three months. "And it was (frustrating) that with pitching, I had no idea what I was doing. I was like, 'This is embarrassing. I'm just getting up there and chucking it.'"
So he sought help.
Lancellotti started working out with Chuck Bushbeck, a former Los Angeles Angels scout. During their first session, Lancellotti said Bushbeck showed him how he was lifting his left leg straight up and down and not using his long stride to his advantage.
Three weeks later, Lancellotti hit 90 mph for the first time.
"That's when I fell in love with pitching," he said. "Just being able to throw that pitch and look back and see the 90 (on the scoreboard), I was like, 'Oh my gosh.'"
Woodard, then the pitching coach at Virginia Tech, first saw Lancellotti pitch around that same time. Standing with some other coaches, he still recalls turning to them during Lancellotti's outing and saying "he's got a chance to win a lot of college games and pitch for a long time."Â
The more Woodard saw Lancellotti, the more impressed he was, not only with Joey Lancellotti the pitcher but also with Joey Lancellotti the hitter.
"Pretty much every game I saw him hit, I saw him hit a home run …" Woodard said. "Every time you'd go see him play, he was the best player on the field. As an ACC pitching coach, I was like, 'This is a no-brainer. This kid is going to be a stud.'"
Lancellotti's college decision was just as easy.Â
When he was 8, Lancellotti said he started working out with former Carolina second baseman Mike Zolk. Lancellotti watched Zolk's games as much as possible and closely followed the Tar Heels' run to the College World Series in 2013. He idolized UNC during that time.
Ahead of his sophomore year of high school in August 2014, Lancellotti was in Raleigh for a travel ball tournament when the last game was rained out. But it was ultimately moved to Boshamer Stadium. Lancellotti wasn't going to miss out on the chance to pitch there. So he begged his coach to let him take the mound, and he ultimately tossed a no-hitter.Â
Unbeknownst to him, Scott Forbes was working out at Boshamer Stadium that day. Carolina's associate head coach tracked down Lancellotti after the game and took him and his family on a campus tour. He invited them back to Chapel Hill the next day and offered Lancellotti a scholarship.
"I committed on the spot," Lancellotti said. "This was my dream school, so I knew even if I was young, if it's my dream school, what's the point of looking around still?"
Falling in love with pitching
Among the several schools that offered him a scholarship, Lancellotti said half recruited him as a pitcher and the other half recruited him as a hitter. For the most part, he felt as if the bigger schools viewed him as the latter.
But entering his freshman season at UNC, he had hopes of being a two-way player.
Woodard said Lancellotti "held his own" at the plate during the fall of 2017. Then in the third game of the season against South Florida, he tallied a pinch-hit single in his first career at-bat. He's logged only one at-bat since then, though; it came against Liberty on March 2, 2018.
Not long after that game and one of the 28 appearances he made during his freshman season, Lancellotti said Mike Fox approached him before batting practice one day. The head coach told him then that he'd impressed the coaching staff enough for them to trust him as one of the first relievers out of the bullpen. And with him moving into that role, they thought it would be best for him to take a break from hitting.
"I was kind of hesitant," Lancellotti said. "It was bittersweet because hearing, 'you're going to be a guy for us,' as a freshman was awesome to hear. But at the same time, it was like, 'No more hitting? This is what I've been doing since I was 3 years old.'
"I love pitching, but I started that later and have such a long love for hitting. That was the first thing I did. But I had to realize what's going to take me further in this game and fall in love with that."
He certainly has.
After going 3-3 with a 3.96 ERA as a freshman, Lancellotti is 6-2 with a 2.08 ERA this season. He's been especially effective as of late. Entering this weekend's NCAA super regional against Auburn, he's posted a 1.59 ERA over his last 28 1/3 innings. In that span, he's recorded 32 strikeouts and issued 11 walks. He's also converted two saves, his most recent coming in Sunday's regional-clinching win over Tennessee.
There are multiple factors in Lancellotti's success. Among them, Woodard said, is he's taking care of his body better – he's focusing more on his recovery, training and nutrition.
Lancellotti also said he has more confidence in his fastball, which has always been considered a plus offering, and isn't afraid to challenge hitters with it. According to UNC's analytics team, he threw three fastballs above 96 mph during the ACC Tournament, marking the first three times he's eclipsed that mark as a Tar Heel. Recently, he's been mostly between 93-95 mph.Â
He's always paired that pitch with a hard, late-biting slider. But he said he currently has two other pitches, a changeup and a sinker, also working for him.Â
As a starter for the Orleans Firebirds of the Cape Cod League last summer, Lancellotti said he was able to experiment with his changeup more than he can in the situations he finds himself in coming out of the Carolina bullpen. He started working on his sinker at the beginning of the season and began using it during the Georgia Tech series in April.
"When he's able to run that (sinker) inside on the righty hitters upwards of 94 mph, 95 mph, being able to bear down on guys like that, it opens up an array of pitches that we can use," Brandon Martorano said. "When you're coming in that hard with that much velocity, it opens up the outside part of the plate."
But just as important as anything, though, has been the extra motivation Lancellotti gets from pitching in crucial parts of the game.
'Just a crazy dude'
As the "Leverage 1" option in UNC's bullpen, Woodard said Lancellotti is the pitcher who the Tar Heels turn to "when all the chips are in the middle."Â
Some people might shy away from such a role. But not Lancellotti.
"I've never been one to get really nervous," he said. "I'm kind of like, 'Here it is. Let's do it.' It's a very Philly way to look at it. That's always how I've been, just a crazy dude. I think it would be not me to come into a situation like that and be timid. The only way to go into that is to be like, 'Alright, let's do it.'"
The way Lancellotti struts around the pitcher's mound after a strikeout or yells toward the dugout at the end of an inning, he radiates energy. It's contagious, too.
"We can all feed off that kind of stuff when Joey is out on the mound, when he's bearing down on the hitters in the box," Martorano said. "It's intimidating as a hitter when you're up there and you're seeing Joe pretty much just being able to take over a game. Just being able to be back there (behind the plate) and watch that happen is pretty special."
Lancellotti said he's always pitched with such ferociousness. But as a freshman last season, he said he was "a little nervous to use too much emotion" since he hadn't proven himself. He definitely hasn't been afraid to let loose this season, though.
At the same time, he always has to ensure his emotions don't overcome him.Â
"For him, it's just understanding where that line is of combining adrenaline and competitiveness with poise and steady breathing," Woodard said. "When all those things are in sync, he's one of the best pitchers in the country."
Woodard believes Lancellotti would likely be the Friday starter at almost any school in the country. But he's fully embraced the role he's in. That's one of the many reasons why he's beloved by his coaches and teammates.
A role in the starting rotation could await Lancellotti next season. There's also a chance the sophomore, who is already 21 and is ranked by Baseball America as the No. 217 prospect in this year's MLB Draft, might not be in Chapel Hill next season. He could be selected at some point in Rounds 3-10 on Tuesday.
Despite all the promise he's shown on the mound, Lancellotti says he still wishes he could hit. He constantly nags Forbes, saying he still has a bat. And he tells Carolina's hitters once a day, Martorano said, that he could step in the box and hit a home run.
"He was a slugger back in his day in high school, but his future is going to be on the mound and his future is so, so, so ridiculously bright," Martorano said. "When you have such a gift and such an innate ability to change a game at a certain position, I think he's coming into his own. He's still only 21 and now he's being able to see himself perform at the highest level and dominate. And I think his future is untapped, his ceiling is limitless.Â
"What he can do on the mound and what he's going to do for us moving forward in the postseason and in his future is going to be great."
