Brandon Neeck will get the ball for Virginia’s opener on Friday vs. Bellarmine at the Jerry Bryson Classic, with coach Brian O’Connor going with an all-lefty weekend rotation to start the 2022 season.
“Certainly everybody talks about there being an advantage to being a left-handed pitcher. There’s a couple of reasons why that is. They control the running game and execute. I like it. Who knows where we’ll be at next weekend or the weekend after, but that’s how we’re starting out, and I like where it’s at,” said O’Connor, whose team is ranked as high as #5 in the preseason national polls on the heels of the program’s sixth College World Series appearance a year ago.
Neeck (2-0, 1.93 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 40K/11BB in 23.1 IP, .225 oppBA in 2021) will be joined by Nate Savino (3-3, 3.79 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 34K/16 BB in 54.2 IP, .269 oppBA in 2021) and Southern Cal transfer Brian Gursky (1-2, 4.45 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, 26K/11BB in 30.1 IP, .275 oppBA in 2021) as the weekend starters.
“They need experience. They don’t have a lot of experience,” O’Connor said. “Brandon Neeck hasn’t thrown that many innings for us. Nate Savino has probably thrown 75 innings in his career. And Brian Gursky is a transfer from University of Southern Cal, and he didn’t pitch a whole lot there. So, there’s talent, but they’re lacking some experience. And I’m excited for them to get that.”
Nothing is really set in stone in terms of the rotation, what the plan is for mid-week, long and middle relief and the late innings.
The guy you’d presume to be the top candidate to replace Stephen Schoch as the closer is Matt Wyatt (4-2, 3.86 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, 51K/23BB in 39.2 IP, .243 oppBA in 2021) after his outsized role in the run to the CWS, but O’Connor was non-commital on who his closer will be when talking with reporters on Wednesday.
“I’m not going to say Matt Wyatt is the closer. He’s going to be limited how much he’s going to pitch early on. My plan will be to use him this weekend and a one- or two-inning capacity,” O’Connor said, listing as the other candidates at closer Northern Colorado transfer Dylan Bowers (2-5, 5.96 ERA, 1.73 WHIP, 86K/40BB in 62 IP as a starter in 2021), Columbia transfer Will Geerdes (who didn’t pitch in 2021) and Jay Woolfolk – yes, that Jay Woolfolk, the backup quarterback on the Virginia football team, who was also the Gatorade state baseball player of the year in Virginia as a senior in 2019, and whose arsenal includes a 95 mph fastball.
“I like Jay Woolfolk. I think Jay can come in and throw an inning or two and has the kind of stuff that could potentially finish a game for you,” O’Connor said.
It’s not so much where things start with the pitching staff as where things shake out over the next few weeks.
“It’s a matter of us spending the first few weeks to figure out what roles are those and who is best suited for each individual role,” O’Connor said.
Story by Chris Graham
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