Nobody who is a UVA baseball fan wants to hear this, but Cavs coach Brian O’Connor is obviously doing the right thing shelving All-America ace lefty Nathan Kirby for what is in effect the rest of his college career.
Kirby, a junior, is a likely first-round pick in next month’s MLB Draft. O’Connor said Thursday based on what he has seen from Kirby this week in his throwing sessions that Kirby will not pitch this weekend in the Lake Elsinore Regional, which makes the Cavs’ road to the Super Regional that much tougher to travel.
Without Kirby, who was most likely going to be used in a limited bullpen role this weekend at best anyway, O’Connor has to keep Josh Sborz back to potentially close out either of Virginia’s first two games, or both, if that opportunity presents itself, making him unavailable for a possible Sunday start.
That is, of course, assuming Virginia can get that far, one, and two, that it can get the ball from either Connor Jones, the Game 1 starter, or Brandon Waddell, the Game 2 starter, to Sborz without a middleman, given how the middlemen have been doing of late.
Virginia has had major issues in late-inning situations down the stretch in 2015, blowing a four-run ninth-inning lead earlier this month in a 9-7 loss to Duke, then giving up a 5-2 eighth-inning lead to Miami in the opening game of pool play in the ACC Tournament in what turned into a 9-5 loss.
Then N.C. State put up seven in the eighth to break a 2-2 tie in a 9-2 win in the Cavs’ ACC Tournament finale on Saturday.
Sborz has been shuttling back and forth from the pen to the starting rotation, and has shined in both roles. He took a perfect game into the seventh in an 11-0 one-hit win over Georgia Tech in the play-in game at the ACC Tournament last week, and based on that performance, you’d love to see him get the ball Saturday night over Waddell, who has disappointed in his junior campaign (3-5, 4.52 ERA), but does bring big-game chops to the fore from his performance in Virginia’s 2014 run to the College World Series.
Having Kirby available even for one inning Friday or Saturday could have freed up O’Connor to use Sborz to start either Game 1 or Game 2.
Credit to the coach for seeing the bigger picture. It’s not worth risking injury to Kirby given that he’s about to sign a contract with lots of zeroes on the end to maybe win a game.
O’Connor is able to convince top high-school pitchers to forego going to pro ball straight out of high school because he has a track record of getting guys ready to pitch in the big leagues.
A big part of that is demonstrating to the future stars that he knows how to manage innings and has baseball common sense when it comes to dealing with guys going through injuries.
Kirby, you can imagine, wants the ball because he wants to be able to redeem himself after his epic meltdown in the CWS Championship Series Game 1 loss to Vanderbilt.
Let’s hope he gets it next weekend in the Super Regionals, though you have to imagine that Virginia’s season is going to end before the Super Regional round precisely because Kirby won’t be around this weekend to lend his prized left arm.
– Column by Chris Graham
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