Quite frankly, North Carolina baseball coach Mike Fox tries not to think about what’s gone.
The 213 wins and just 62 losses in the past four seasons alone. The multiple trips to Omaha, Neb., and the College World Series. The two runner-up finishes and the numerous MLB draft picks.
And perhaps most importantly, the top two-thirds of his starting rotation, Adam Warren and Alex White, who Fox will somehow try and replace this season.
Because, as Fox admits, even with hitting wizards Dustin Ackley and Kyle Seager manning the plate in the past, the UNC offense comes and goes. But his starting pitching, well, that’s what his team is predicated on.
This year, Fox isn’t quite sure what he has. Statistics and rankings say he’s got perhaps the finest 2007 high school graduate in the nation leading his rotation with Matt Harvey. And inexperience with his starters says he’s got a converted reliever trudging in as his No. 2 man with Colin Bates.
In fact, all that’s known is how unknown this season could turn out — especially with the team’s starting pitching.
And for Bates, that’s excitement in itself.
“I think it’s going to be a lot of fun for people to watch,” he said. “Something we do have, we have a lot of strikethrowers. It’s very encouraging. A lot of guys look like they’re ready to step up to the challenge, and I’m looking forward to seeing it myself.”
Bates, for one, will be getting the chance this season. After redshirting in 2007 with a blood clot in his right shoulder, the now-junior compiled a 4-4 record during 60 innings of work as a middle reliever last year.
In the past, Fox has had no qualms with inserting Bates during the toughest predicaments. And as Harvey attests, “it’s always nice having him behind us.” But for now, that will no longer be the case.
During the offseason, Fox sat down with pitching coach Scott Forbes and discussed Bates’ future — more specifically pertaining to starting. With no sure-fire freshman coming in who can start immediately, Fox didn’t want to risk too much inexperience with the starters.
Insert Bates.
“My preference is to pitch whenever Coach tells me to,” Bates said. “But I’m looking forward to the opportunity to start if it presents itself. If I have to go back to the bullpen, that’s what I’ll do.”
Harvey, meanwhile, will do no such switching. As the Tar Heels’ Sunday starter last year, he will be jumping up two rungs in the rotation with Warren and White gone.
For many North Carolina fans, it’s been expected since Harvey’s heralded schoolboy days he’d be the team’s No. 1 starter. Heck, he was Baseball America’s No. 1 high school prospect entering college. And after posting a 7-2 record and 2.79 ERA his freshman season, it seemed Harvey might just verify such thoughts.
But then came his sophomore campaign and an ERA that spiked to 5.40, albeit with another 7-2 record.
“It was a rough year,” he said. “It was mostly mechanical issues I had. A lot of people thought I was hurt. It was mostly I’d said, me going through my mechanics and having a little trouble with that. Maybe not going after the hitter as much as I should.”
“I think I put too much pressure on the year. I had too many expectations for myself and kind of let those get ahead of me instead of just going out each day and pitching like I could.”
Still, as Fox points out, “take out two bad efforts, and Matt Harvey did not have as bad a year as people are trying to make it out.”
Harvey did allow seven runs in limited performances against Duke and N.C. State. But contrarily, he pitched perhaps UNC’s biggest game of the year — Fox says as much — against Boston College. With a Coastal Division crown and a national NCAA seed likely on the line, the then-sophomore pitched an absolute gem: allowing one run in eight and two-thirds innings.
It’s a trend Harvey will hope to continue this year, and if he keeps the distractions to a minimum — he’s eligible once more for the MLB draft after being a third-round selection his senior year of high school — he definitely could.
“Matt’s an incredible talent and is capable of keeping us in every game he pitches in,” Fox said. “We’ve constantly talked to Matt about the (MLB draft) process and the things he can control. When you’re told in high school that you’re this and that. If you’re not careful those things can distort the real purpose of what playing the game is. You do put too much pressure on yourself. It’s a growing process, and it’s some maturity on Matt’s part.
“Yet, all Matt has to do is step back and look at those two guys (Warren and White) and say, ‘This is how you do it.’”
Fox won’t have either Warren or White around for such lessons, but Harvey and Bates say they’ve taken any past advice to heart. They’ll have to. It’s their rotation now.
“All eyes are going to be on our pitchers and how we can go out and pitch, especially our starters,” Fox said.
Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.
