Mountaineers’ JJ Wetherholt will rediscover his stroke
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- When you bat .441, as JJ Wetherholt did last year as a West Virginia sophomore, you etch an image of yourself into the public awareness.
You think of Wetherholt standing menacingly at the plate, aggressively attacking the first good pitch, slashing it hard to the outer corners of the ball field. Not once, not twice, but every time he comes to the plate.
But no one can hit .441 forever.
Baseball is a game where the best fail at a 70% rate. You can't help it. Think about what hitting is.
There's a man standing 60-feet, 6-inches away with a ball that measures not 6 inches in diameter. He throws it at about 90 miles an hour toward the plate, the round ball that can go straight or curve, sometimes in, sometimes out.
It changes speeds, comes in at the knees or at the waist or at the shoulders … Spinning crazily.
What's more, it is unlike any other sport in that the ball belongs not to the offense, but to the defense. They know what they are going to do, the batter doesn't.
And no one blocks for the batter. No one passes to him. No one sets a screen.
He is alone against nine men placed strategically around the field.
No, no one hits .441 for very long and this is certainly true when one of your physical gifts, speed, is limited as is your power by a hamstring pull, which sets you down for 24 games.
You can't hit from the dugout and the more you sit, the worse your timing gets, for hitting, like most aspects of sport, is built by repetition.
So, it's been a tough year for WVU's All-American JJ Wetherholt, whose batting average is at .345, if you can imagine thinking that .345 isn't what you might have expected.
But special players do special things. Baseball is a game where you play offense and defense. It's a game where you run the bases. It's a game where you win mentally as well as physically.
And so, as WVU heads into its first Super Regional with three games at North Carolina starting with an 8 p.m. game Friday, a 6 p.m. game Saturday and a 3 p.m. game on Sunday, if necessary, there's no one complaining about JJ Wetherholt.
Yeah, he's had only three hits in his last five games through the Big 12 Tournament and the Tucson Regional. Yeah, he had only one RBI in that time and is 4 for 20, which is a .200 average.
So how come he was a hero in the clinching game with his defense, and made a couple of special plays in the second game?
See, he's the kind of player who doesn't have to hit to tip the scales in WVU's favor.
In the opening game of the NCAA Tournament against Dallas Baptist he led off with a walk on four pitches. They want nothing to do with him.
Scoreless in the third as he comes to bat with a man on, they hit him with a pitch. Moments later, Logan Sauve homers and it's 3-0 WVU in a game it will win 4-1.
"JJ isn't in this press conference today, but you can just tell his presence at the plate. He draws a leadoff walk from a guy who walks no one, then he gets hit by a pitch from a guy who hits no one," Coach Randy Mazey says in the post-game press conference.
"He creates a presence that makes people pitch differently. The fact that JJ's in there makes the offense go whether he gets hits or not."
Second game against Grand Canyon, top of the first, runner at second, one out. Wetherholt leaps high to snare Zach Yorke's line drive and double the runner off second base. End of potential rally.
Seventh inning, Yorke hit another line drive toward left field. Wetherholt goes even higher, acrobatically snatching the ball out of the air. His smile is wider than the Grand Canyon as he thumps his chest.
In the third game versus Grand Canyon, again, eighth inning, Grand Canyon was trying to claw its way back into the game.
Emilio hit a scorcher headed on the ground for left field but Wetherholt came sliding over, backhands the ball, gets halfway up and uncorks an impossible throw to first base to nip the runner and a potential rally.
"I just try to stay locked in and make sure my prep is good every pitch; trust my positioning and make sure I'm ready when the ball is hit to me," Wetherholt said, trying to explain the play. "This weekend my offense was a little bit slow and I wanted to win the game any way I could. For me, I had the defense going today and it was big for us. I just wanted to bring energy for the guys."
Energy? Here was winning pitcher Aidan Majors' view from the dugout.
"I was in the dugout at that point watching it unfold. I've experienced JJ for three years and I can say wholeheartedly that's the best play I've seen him make. For him to be able to do that in that moment …. and he said himself he didn't have the bat going the way he wanted, he still found ways to impact the game.
"That play, being able to make it at that time, sealed the game. It felt like it took the last wind out of the sails for them. There's only a few guys who can make that play and he's one of them."
Now it all starts over again, another new season and JJ Wetherholt figures to find his stroke again.