The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

Broom for improvement

 

West Virginia is almost four full seasons into the Big 12 experience and is 8-4 against Texas with three series wins. That’s a mouthful, when you consider from where the Mountaineers came.

True, the Longhorns are down, they couldn’t pitch or field over the weekend and change is probably coming, but WVU had a lot to do with chasing three good starters and sending them on their way with a 13.09 ERA in just 11 innings, with constantly putting the ball in play and with looking like the better team the entire time.

This is beginning to feel like validation, not so much the result of one weekend series, but the way Randy Mazey’s young team has gone 10-3 since finding itself a game over .500 on April 16.

“When we joined the Big 12, we knew we were going to strap in on against teams like Texas and Oklahoma, and we didn’t know what to expect,” Mazey said. “I think we’ve showed right now we’re as good as anybody. I think as this program matures and we get recruiting classes in here, this is going to start happening more often.”

There’s a larger question we have to address, and we’ll get there in a moment, but take a moment and review the weekend and, in particular, the way Mazey facilitated the success.

    • We can’t heap too much praise upon him for starting Chad Donato, as he’s done every Friday this season, but Donato allowed two runs in seven innings, and it rained for much of it. He had only two 1-2-3 innings, but he massaged tight moments, none bigger than the one in the sixth. WVU took a 5-1 lead on a squeeze bunt (!) in the fifth, but then Texas loaded the bases with no one out. Donato allowed one run and struck out the final two batters, the first on a 3-2 breaking ball.
    • In the eighth, Mazey used his bench and had Shaun Wood pinch hit. He hit this one halfway up the wall on the second level — and I’ll testify for Jeff Culhane’s call. Wood bombed one into a similar spot before Tuesday’s game, and I know this because I was walking into the park on that walkway in right field and had to look around when I heard it land 10 or so feet away. Wood’s a situational, late-game player this year, but he’s accepted his role. Look at how happy the teammates are, particularly in the bullpen.

  • On Saturday, Mazey didn’t start leadoff batter Braden Zarbnisky and instead kept him in the bullpen … because Zarbnisky can play the outfield and pitch, and he’s been WVU’s mid-week starter during this stretch. Starter Ross Vance couldn’t hold a 5-0 lead and was pulled in the fifth. Zarbnisky relieved and allowed one run in 3.1 innings to move to 3-0. His replacement in the batting order was sophomore Kyle Davis, who was batting about 90 points lower than his team-best .353 average last season. Davis went 3-for-5 with a home run, three runs scored and two RBI. Zarbnisky’s replacement in the lineup? Marques Inman, who hit a three-run homer, his first of the season.
  • On Sunday, freshman Michael Grove, who became the Sunday starter late in the season, couldn’t go. Connor Dotson made his first start of the season and allowed four earned runs in six innings. Mazey used three relievers — including his closer in the ninth with a four-run lead — and watched them allow just two hits in three innings. The second reliever was Jackson Sigman, a submarine style thrower. He pitched in all three games and allowed one hit in five innings. For the weekend, the bullpen allowed one run in 9.1 innings. The Texas bullpen allowed 14 runs in 13 innings … and we should note WVU batted .369 in the three games. If you weren’t aware, WVU’s bullpen was a major problem when things were going badly.

Everything went well, Mazey won Nos. 300, 301 and 302 in his career and the Mountaineers are now tied with No, 12 TCU with 11 conference wins. WVU has good starters — and someone like B.J. Myers, who had been the Sunday starter, or Dotson can make a major difference in the Big 12 tournament — and might have a few things in order now with the bullpen. But that he lineup is fierce, and Darius Hill-Ivan Vera-Jackson Cramer as 3-4-5 can get on and move people around the bases, but everyone is getting on and moving people around the bases now.

And to think, it was hard to get to this point. Before the Texas series, Mazey had used 33 different batting orders and 29 different combinations for defense/DH.

“I would never say it’s good coaching, but at this point you try to put the nine best players in the lineup, and sometimes to do that, you have to move Ivan Vera to third base,” Mazey said of the freshman batting .437, a number that would lead the conference if he had enough at-bats. “He hadn’t played third base at all, but he was swinging the bat so well and Ray Guerrini was swinging the bat so well that we had to find a way to keep them both in the lineup.

“[Zarbnisky] has been swinging the bat well, but he’s also a pitcher. Sometimes he has to DH to make sure we have our nine best offensive players. We’re trying to win games, and sometimes you have to move kids around to create some consistency in the lineup, and that’s not easy for kids.”

The question now is can WVU sustain this? WVU has been, to put it accurately, terrible at the end of the past three regular seasons. See for yourself: 2013, 2014 and 2015. This is a really young team that’s never felt this good about itself before and now has to handle that, if only to get to the Big 12 tournament with at least a lot of this forward momentum.

The Big 12 isn’t all that intimidating this year, and the Mountaineers have eight games left to keep it all together: Tuesday at home against 25-21 Maryland, home for three against 24-23 William & Mary, at 24-19 Pitt and then three on the road against eighth-ranked and Big 12-leading Texas Tech.