“One game at a time” mentality leads to thriving dual-role for Blue Raider pitchers

Photo by: @MTAthletics

4/28/2022 1:00:00 PM | Baseball

Many of staff have found themselves as “swing” starters, who also relief pitch

By: Sam Doughton

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Jaden Hamm said he had plenty of time to prepare. After Louisiana Tech tied the series up on Saturday in Ruston, La., the sophomore righty learned he'd get the ball to start Game 3 on Sunday.

It was a position Hamm has found himself in before this season, a year in which he has pitched in 14 games, but only started on the mound in three of them. That's fine for Hamm, he said, the coaches are good about giving them a heads up with no set weekend rotation.

Trent Seibert finished off the rubber match to earn the win, the 13th appearance for the southpaw out of the bullpen this year, but his 15th game to go alongside two starts. A swingman role he expected to have this year, and one he's glad has worked.

"The biggest thing for me coming out of the pen is to pound the zone," Seibert said. "They're bringing you in because the starter is getting into trouble or just getting tired. It's not like a starter, where you can go out there and find the zone and figure out what the umpire is giving you."

The switching of roles between almost every key pitcher on staff this season has paid big dividends as Middle Tennessee baseball has won five straight Conference USA series entering this weekend's tilt with UTSA. A bit unusual, perhaps, for a college program to only have one guy, Friday night starter Zach Keenan, that they're sure will start every weekend, but a routine that has worked and is very much intentional, pitching coach Jerry Meyers said.

"It's not because we don't feel like we have three quality starters, it's because we've got a mentality of we're going to win one game at a time," Meyers said. "And why not throw the guy who's the best matchup go the first game if he's available?"

Scroll over the stats tab for Baseball on GoBlueRaiders.com, and switch the display over to pitching, and one will see the disparity in games played vs games started for many of their pitchers. Peyton Wigginton, 14 played, eight started. Eriq Swan, 12 played, nine started. Seibert, fifteen played, two started.

In fact, of the pitchers on the Blue Raiders staff that have appeared in at least 10 games as a pitcher, only one, Keenan, has made all of his appearances as a starter or a reliever, with the senior toeing the rubber as a starter 10 times this season. Last season, two pitchers (Wigginton and Aaron Brown) each started every game they pitched in while another two (Keenan and Seibert) started 11 of their 14 appearances.

The extra versatility of so many swing starters has unlocked a lot of options for Meyers and head coach Jim Toman to navigate a weekend series, letting them use some of their most effective pitchers to close out games, and then potentially starting them later if the pitch counts don't get too high in that outing. Four different Blue Raiders have recorded a save this season, with each of those four (Seibert, Wigginton, Hamm and Swan) all also starting multiple games.

Alternatively, it's helped keep the team's relievers fresh over the course of a weekend series, as almost everyone coming out of the pen has the ability to toss four or five innings if rested.

"The toughest thing is watching the recovery, because a couple of those guys might relieve twice in a four day spurt and get more work than what a starter might've done," Meyers said. "I give them credit, they were all like 'Hey, we'll do whatever.'"

Helping in that mentality is the trust Meyers has built with his pitching staff in his first year in Murfreesboro, particularly with the freedom he's given each player to do what they need to do to be prepared. Seibert highlighted the flexibility of workouts week-to-week depending on their current workload, swapping out days where a bullpen is scheduled for a short box work day instead if one's arm needs some extra time, for instance. While Hamm said the tweaks, rather than attempting to rework the wheel of pitching, has been key.

"You've pitched your whole life, so with him just doing minor tweaks, just knowing he's in your corner is huge for the staff," Hamm said. "He's a guy that sits back and lets you do what you're good at and he'll tweak you here and there."

And while pitchers are often people focused heavily on routine, Seibert says the swing role has helped him figure out how to keep that routine where it matters: eating, sleeping and the recovery process, but kept him open to starting or relieving with a 'let's go' mentality.

"If someone told me we had a game right now and I was starting in ten minutes, I'd be like 'Let's go,'" the senior said. "I only have a couple of games left, so every time I go to the ballpark, I'm just ready to have fun."

Still, that doesn't stop the team's one full-time starter from having the typical, or, one could suppose, a typical, pitching routine quirks.

"Biggest routine guy is for sure Zach Keenan, he is something else," Seibert laughed. "I saw him come out here two hours before he even had to be out here. He was on the bullpen mound, visualizing strikeouts.

"I thought that was pretty unique."