UVA junior left-hander Nathan Kirby, out since April 17 with a strained lat muscle, threw 40 pitches to Cavs hitters on Monday, Virginia coach Brian O’Connor told reporters today, and “looked really good.”
“His fastball was 88 to 92 miles an hour. He was throwing breaking balls and changeups. I thought he looked good from the standpoint of his strength level. His consistency wasn’t real great, which can be expected, because he hadn’t faced a batter in seven weeks,” O’Connor said.
Kirby, an All-American in 2014, was 5-2 with a 2.28 ERA in 10 starts as the Cavs’ Friday-night starter in 2015. O’Connor had said over the weekend that he thought Kirby would be available out of the bullpen in the College World Series, and he wasn’t backing off those comments on Tuesday.
“Based on what I saw there, and what we’ll evaluate over the next three or four days, I anticipate that he will be able to help us to some degree in Omaha. I don’t know that that would be in the first game, maybe the second game or beyond that. Obviously the deeper we play, the more contributions he can have,” O’Connor said.
– Story by Chris Graham
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