ATHENS, Ga. — ESPN college baseball analyst Mike Ferrin describes the 2016 Arizona Wildcats’ run to the College World Series as somewhat of a miracle with the pitching staff that then-coach Jay Johnson had at his disposal.
“They made it to the CWS finals with a pitching staff that was really held together with baling wire in a lot of respects,” Ferrin said. “Jay Johnson is in a better position now than that year. He’s seen what it’s like to have to go through and find guys as you go along.”
The way Johnson moved his Arizona pitchers around ahead of the postseason might give clues about how he will approach this year’s postseason at LSU.
For much of the 2016 season, Johnson’s Friday night starter was right-hander Nathan Bannister. The other two rotation members rotated among left-hander Cameron Ming, left-hander JC Cloney and right-hander Kevin Ginkel. Arizona’s top relief pitcher was Bobby Dalbec, a two-way player who now plays third base for the Boston Red Sox.
That changed as the postseason drew near. Dalbec moved into the starting rotation, while Ming was used as a reliever who could affect more games.
“Jay doesn’t necessarily think, ‘You have to be a starter or you have to be a closer,’ ” Ming, now a pitching development coach with the Seattle Mariners, said. “He sees you as an ‘out-getter,’ so when are you the most valuable in the game to pitch? Dalbec and I flip-flopped — I became the de facto Swiss army knife. I could go five innings, I could go one inning.”
Ming made 10 appearances in the Wildcats’ 13 postseason games as a reliever.
Dalbec’s role as a starter had taken more shape in the regional, when Arizona played a doubleheader on June 6 against UL. Dalbec started the first game, saving Bannister for the regional final.
“He was going to be our back-end closer,” said Bannister, who now serves as the pitching coach for Grand Canyon University, about Dalbec. “But we needed him, and as we got to postseason we started to utilize him more and he finished strong.”
The team relied on those four pitchers heavily. When Bannister tore his UCL in the third inning of an elimination game June 24, 2016, against Oklahoma State, Ginkel came in to get the next out before Ming finished the remaining six innings. After that, Ming worked 2⅔ innings across two of the three games of the championship series against Coastal Carolina.
“All of us went to play pro ball in some capacity. I consider myself a better college pitcher, but Kevin Ginkel made it to the big leagues, Bobby Dalbec as a hitter, but I think he could be a big-league pitcher if he tried to,” Bannister said. “We had some prospects and a mix of older college arms. It’s nothing like what Jay’s got going on now.”
What LSU needs to mirror that performance are guys who consistently can throw more than four to five innings. Some of those Swiss army knife options will need to step up down the stretch of the Georgia series and the Southeastern Conference tournament.
Right-hander Thatcher Hurd showed potential when he tossed five innings of relief against Georgia on Thursday, retiring 10 of the final 11 batters he faced after giving up two home runs in the ninth inning as Georgia tied the game. LSU won 8-5 in 12 innings.
Paul Skenes is locked in as a shutdown starter, but Ty Floyd — while the Saturday starter for all of conference play — did work relief outings at the beginning of the season. He’s averaging almost five innings per appearance.
Left-hander Javen Coleman could be the Bobby Dalbec of this LSU team.
“The postseason is a little different because you deploy guys somewhat differently,” Ferrin said. “They need to keep building (Javen) Coleman’s innings because he potentially gives them an option to start, which could theoretically put (Ty) Floyd in a position where he can be a fireman. Maybe you want him to be available to come in the fifth inning of a game to lock it down to the end.”
Ming still stands by Johnson’s philosophy of not being tied to a certain rotation when it comes to the postseason.
“It’s not what traditional coaches think, but when you think of it that way, you’re not as boxed in,” Ming said. “When you think of it as out-getters, you’re almost looking like chess moves: this guy can play best against this guy at this time in the game, or a reliever coming in for the first two innings gives you the freedom to put your pitchers in the best place to be the most effective.”
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