College World Series Discussion - 2015

[Eye Black]

Congrats to your alma mater, dlk9s!

 

LINK: Video of the final strike of the 2015 College World Series.

[3and2Fastball]

Nathan Kirby was filthy tonight. Lot of potential there

[TheCrew07]

Nice Kirby feature from BA, as it's free content I'm posting the entire article.

 

CWS 2015: A Triumphant End For Kirby

June 25, 2015 by Michael Lananna

 

OMAHA—The phone rang in the top of the eighth inning Wednesday, and Nathan Kirby’s first thoughts were, in his own words, “Oh, God. Here it comes. Here it goes.”

 

Warming up felt like slow motion. And when he actually stepped on the mound a half inning later, it was like someone pressed fast forward, then pressed it again, then again. The Virginia junior lefthander tried to take a few deep breaths, tried to slow everything down. Nothing worked.

 

Kirby is the anxious type; it’s the way he’s wired. And if trying to get the final six outs in the final game of the College World Series wasn’t nerve-wracking enough, Kirby had a whole other list of reasons to be nervous. There was the fact that he hadn’t pitched in a relief outing in more than two years, and he doesn’t remember pitching particularly well in that outing. There was the fact that, in the last two months, due to a left lat strain, Kirby had started exactly one game—last Friday’s 10-5 loss to Florida. That didn’t go well, either. Then there’s the box score from Game One of the CWS finals last year, against the very same Vanderbilt club on the very same T.D. Ameritrade mound, which shows Kirby melting down in the third inning, giving up eight runs, walking five batters, throwing just 27 of his 62 pitches for strikes.

 

No pressure.

 

Kirby took all of those reasons to possibly be nervous and repackaged them—as adrenaline. And then he took that adrenaline and used it to throw hard—as hard as he possibly could (“I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do,” he joked later). And then, with the game moving so fast he hardly remembers what pitches he threw, Kirby blew by the Commodores, allowing just two baserunners and recording five of his six outs via strikeout.

 

The last was the sweetest—a slider that caught the inside corner against pinch-hitter Kyle Smith, that sent catcher Matt Thaiss running into Kirby’s arms, that sealed Virginia’s first national title in program history. With a 4-2 win over the Commodores, the Cavaliers became national champions, and Kirby—after eight weeks of injury, after throwing the worst inning of his life in the same stadium against the same team last year—was the man who delivered the final blow.

 

“I was just hoping he would throw a strike, and fortunately he did, and what an ending for that kid’s career,” head coach Brian O’Connor said on the field a few minutes later. “Everything he endured this year and to get hurt and then come back and get the final out for the national championship is really, really special.

 

“What an unbelievable opportunity for that kid to—maybe he could say he redeemed himself.”

 

Kirby was asked point-blank, multiple times, if he considered Wednesday night redemption.

 

He didn’t. Or, at least, he said he didn’t. In his very first start of the season on opening day at East Carolina, Kirby said he had flushed last year’s nightmarish start against Vanderbilt in the CWS finals from his mind completely.

 

“I went out and told Nathan that he needs to walk off this mound with his head held high,” O’Connor had said after that start last year, before Vanderbilt went on to win the national championship two days later. “There will be many more opportunities down the road for Nathan Kirby.”

 

O’Connor was right. Still, he couldn’t have possibly envisioned the path Kirby would take this year. He couldn’t have known how right he’d end up being.

 

Coming into the season projected as a potential top 10 draft pick, Kirby wound up going 40th overall to the Brewers. He finished 5-3, 2.53 in 64 innings, but his walk numbers were noticeably elevated (32, compared to 81 strikeouts). His draft stock was slipping—and the Cavaliers, with him. Then, on April 17, Kirby left a start against Miami after just three innings, was diagnosed with a left latissimus dorsi strain and told he’d miss six to eight weeks. There was no guarantee he’d pitch again for the Cavaliers.

 

“This year, it’s been a bumpy ride,” Kirby said. “I didn’t have my command this year, and then I got hurt, and it’s baseball. But I was ready, and whenever I got the call, I was going to run out there and be ready to throw.”

 

He’d been ready for some time—at least, from a psychological standpoint. Kirby said it was frustrating to watch from the dugout as his team—injury-laden and thin—struggled through conference play, at one point not even in the ACC tournament picture, let alone the NCAA tournament. When the Cavaliers did rally, and when they did earn a regional bid as a No. 3 seed at Lake Elsinore, there was talk Kirby might return to the mound. He didn’t. When Virginia advanced to a super regional against Maryland, there was even more talk. Still no Kirby.

 

All the while, Kirby was scratching and clawing with the coaching staff to let him throw. But he said Wednesday night he appreciated his coaches’ level-headed, big-picture approach.

 

His coaches could say the same about him.

 

“I don’t know if a rookie would’ve been able to do it,” pitching coach Karl Kuhn said. “But he’s a veteran, and he’s got a great temperament, and he’s grown up more than any pitcher I think I’ve ever had in my 23 years as a pitching coach.

 

“He’s become a man, and he’s turned into the man that he’s going to be because of his experience in college, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.”

 

Finally cleared to play for the College World Series, the Cavaliers carefully crafted a plan for Kirby. They decided to give him one start last Friday against Florida’s high-octane offense. Pitching for the first time in eight weeks, he lasted just 2 2/3 innings and gave up four runs. Kirby said his nerves were especially high before that start. He had seen the Gators hit four home runs in the game before that.

 

“I felt like I was learning to ride a bike again,” said Kirby, “especially being out here in front of this big a crowd as we had and as great a team as Florida was.”

 

But, with a pitching staff lacking its typical depth, the Cavaliers knew they’d need Kirby again at some point. When they burned closer Josh Sborz with 77 pitches out of the bullpen Tuesday night, Kirby moved up the pecking order as the best available arm in the bullpen.

 

Junior lefthander Brandon Waddell, starting on three day’s rest Wednesday, went as far as he could go before he ran out of energy, holding the Commodores to two runs. He told Kuhn, abiding by the honor system, after the seventh inning and 104 pitches that he couldn’t throw anymore, and Kuhn made the call for Kirby with the Cavaliers up, 4-2.

 

Given Kirby’s health woes, given that he had never earned a collegiate save, given his struggles against Vanderbilt in the finals last year, Kuhn could have hesitated to make the move.

 

“As much as you’re not going to believe me when I say I wasn’t thinking about that—I wasn’t thinking about that,” Kuhn said. “It just felt like it was the right thing to do, and it felt like he was going to make them hit him. I felt like it was a totally different feel from last year.”

 

Kuhn said Kirby is “Hell on wheels” in a short spurt, and on Wednesday night, Kirby lived up to that moniker in every possible sense. Overcome with adrenaline, Kirby was well off the mark with his first two pitches out of the bullpen.

 

“I still couldn’t slow it down, as you saw,” Kirby said. “I was a little erratic.”

 

He was also extremely effective. He didn’t have his best fastball, sitting 89-92 mph, but he leaned heavily on a sharp, biting mid-80’s slider—so heavily that he recorded all five of his strikeouts with it.

 

Two times he faced the potential game-tying run at the plate. He walked Rhett Wiseman with one out in the eighth but struck out both three-hole hitter Dansby Swanson and cleanup hitter Zander Wiel swinging to wiggle out of danger. In the ninth, he gave up a two-out single to Penn Murfee before he struck out Smith, again representing the tying run, to end it.

 

Kirby did it all, in his mind, at breakneck speed. The game was whizzing by him. It went by so quickly that the ending nearly went over his head.

 

When his last-pitch slider snapped into the inside corner of the strike zone, Kirby instinctively reached to adjust his cap—a ritual he performs after each and every pitch, out of habit.

 

“I did it,” Kirby said, “and then I was like, ‘Oh, strike three!’”

 

Then Kirby used the rest of his pent-up nerves, adrenaline, anxiety—whatever you want to call it—and tossed that cap 20 feet in the air.

[Jenkins5]

Kirby already is 3rd best lefty in past decade behind Parra and Braddock after last night....sad considering he hasn't even signed yet. That slider was Braddock nasty last night!

[dlk9s]

It was fun watching him last night (for personal reasons, obviously, but also just as a baseball fan). He looked really nervous and tight for the first batter, but when he got him out, you could see him exhale and immediately relax. Then he just started firing the ball in there.

 

Even though he K'ed Swanson and Wiel, I was really nervous when the PH came up with one on and two out in the 9th. The guy was 6' 4", 220 and from a place called Old Hickory. He looked like he was born to come in and hit a homer. And, as I've learned to be pessimistic as a Virginia fan, he was 1-for-15 on the season, so I just KNEW he was going to jack one. But when I saw him unable to do anything with Kirby's first slider, I knew the guy had zero chance. Ball game.