MORGANTOWN — As time went by during Randy Mazey’s tenure as West Virginia baseball coach, a tenure now that is coming down to its final days as he is retiring at the end of this season, he built his team around a style of play that came to be known as “Mazeyball” in these parts.
It required strong pitching, solid defense and a daring, aggressive speed oriented team that would give catchers nightmares before facing it and that at its best circled the bases as if it were on a merry-go-round.
But this season things changed, not necessarily by choice, but by times as they are where the major league draft and the transfer portal often dictate the shape of a team as much as does the manager or even recruiting.
As this season dawned, no one was sure what to expect of West Virginia, short of a deluge of hits off the bat of JJ Wetherholt, who was the frontrunner to be named the College Baseball Player of the Year.
If only …
“You always try to coach the team you have,” Mazey said on Monday as he spoke before heading to Arlington, Texas, for the opening of the Big 12 postseason tournament. “We went into it having lost our three outfielders from last year who all hit double digit home runs and stole double digit bases. That was the big question going into the season, who’s going to play the outfield and can they do what last year’s guys did.”
They could and they did, but they did it differently.
“This team has a whole different complexion. We started hitting some homers and some other guys started hitting home runs all of a sudden it looks like that’s the kind of team you have,” Mazey said.
“We found out we were capable of hitting the ball out of the ballpark. When that happens, the last thing you want to do is make outs stealing a base. We would steal more bases than we do if it weren’t for the fact the guy at the plate potentially can hit the ball over the fence, so why make an out before that happens.
“We didn’t go into the season thinking we were going to smash homers the whole year, but it looks like it’s gravitated a little bit that way.”
Put another way, you could say that in the past, WVU put opponents’ backs against the wall with their speed and daring on the base paths. This year they have put their backs against the walls trying to run down fly balls that were soaring over the walls.
They finished at 19-11 in the Big 12, fourth in the standings … and that doesn’t touch the potential they carry into the postseason.
Let us go back to Wetherholt.
In the season’s first series he would tear a hamstring. For 24 games this player who had hit an incredible .449 the previous season as a sophom*ore with 16 homers and 60 RBI and 36 stolen bases was nothing more than cheerleader from the dugout and, as fate would have it, a number of WVU’s most highly regarded offensive players like Logan Suave and Brody Kessler and Grant Hussey missed extended periods, to say nothing of top pitcher Derek Clark who missed three early weeks.
Yet the Mountaineers survived, winning 14 of the 24 games Wetherholt missed.
“We did more than survive that. JJ missed 24 games; Logan Suave lost 20 games; Kresser and Hussey both missed double digit games, I believe,” Mazey said.
“For us to be in the position we are in after having said that, No. 1 it’s incredible the job our guys have done in their absence, the guys who wouldn’t have had many at bats if they had been playing.”
But here’s the kicker, that’s the reason why so much hope exists as this now healthy team heads into the postseason.
“It begs the question of how good could this team have been had all that not happened,” Mazey said. “You know Derek Clark, missing three weekends at the beginning, you’d like to think we could have won a couple of the games he would have pitched then.
“This team, if we hadn’t gone through the adversity, could have had a special season. But now that we have everyone back, the team that’s in place could have a special season moving forward.”
It took Wetherholt, who with Derek Clark were named to the All-Big 12 team announced on Monday, a while to get untracked after coming back but now has his average up to .375 wtih 8 homers, 30 RBI and a .708 slugging percentage.
“It’s just like a big leaguer in spring training. The reason for spring training is to give them 50 at bats before the season starts,” Mazey said.
“That’s what JJ went through, his version of spring training. When he came back, his legs weren’t under him. He was just getting a feel for the strike zone again. It appears he’s at the point where he’s swinging the bat way better now than he was.
“It takes a while to get timing back. Fortunately, he’s seeing the ball real well right now.”
This team, in seven less games than last year’s played and with those 24 games without Wetherholt, has hit five more home runs than did last year’s team and there’s no reason to believe there aren’t more coming, along with a spot in a regional tournament after the Big 12 tournament.
Even though the competition gets tougher from here on, WVU faces it with its personnel at its best.
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