TEN QUESTIONS WITH...

Some of the games that your team plays are seven-inning contests, while others are nine-inning games. What determines the length of the game?
For our weekend series, we always play a seven-inning game on Saturday before the nine-inning game. It helps to keep the day a little bit shorter. Usually any non-conference games that we play during the week are also just seven innings long.

How does the length of the game change your approach as a starting pitcher?
If you’re starting a seven-inning game, there’s no point in holding anything back. From a pitcher’s standpoint, the seven-inning games are preferable because they increase your chances of throwing a complete game.

What type of schedule are you on as a starter – do you go every fifth day or is your turn in the rotation determined by your team’s schedule?
Because of the weather, the rotation is thrown off sometimes. But normally, I will go once a week because we don’t play that many games during the week. Everything depends upon how many games we play per week, and how my arm feels.

What type of preparation do you do in the off season to ready yourself for the regular season?
Once we come back from break in January, we usually throw full speed off the mound once or twice per week. We also mix in some long toss. As far as general workouts, we usually work out between three and five times per week and go for a long-distance run twice during the week.

Over the summer, what type of leagues did you compete in?
Last summer, I first played for the Geneva Lakers in the New York Collegiate Baseball League. After that season, I moved on to play in Maine in the New England Collegiate Baseball League. Both leagues were very good leagues as far as preparing me for the upcoming collegiate season. Most of the players in those leagues are Division I players.

What type of experience did you have playing those leagues?
Geneva was fairly close to where I live, so I actually drove to those games every day. But in Maine, of course I had to stay up there. I roomed with our catcher, Brandon DiCesare. Both leagues were an awesome experience.

Those summer leagues are wooden-bat leagues. How much does that favor the pitcher and what are your thoughts regarding the aluminum-bat controversy in the NCAA?
The wooden bats are a pitcher’s dream. It is just a huge advantage, especially when the hitters aren’t used to using them. You can throw inside quite a bit more, trying to break their bats. Also, since the balls don’t take off as much from the bats, the homerun numbers are down. It makes the pitcher a lot more confident.

I think they should go to some kind of a wooden-composite bat at the college level to make it safer, and to keep the scoring down.

During the collegiate season, what type of pregame preparation do you do as far as studying the other team’s batters?
I always check the websites of the opposing team to see how their hitters are doing. Our coaches also printout a game day scouting report, which lets us know who is hitting well, who has power – those kinds of things. If the other team has a player that is hot, you’re not going to feed him fastballs down the middle. Instead, you want to mix it up a little more and throw more off-speed pitches.

On an off day for a starting pitcher, what types of things do you do?
Usually on the day after you throw, you go for a long run. But we also have to chart pitches and keep the scorebook. It’s just the life of a pitcher. In between starts, we also put in time down in the bullpen throwing about half speed.

How important is it for your team to close out the season strong?
We’ve struggled the last couple of years, so I think it is very important for us to close the season out strong – and possibly even qualify for the Mid-American Conference Tournament. We need to establish that UB is a good baseball school and set the foundation for upcoming years.

-The ‘10 Questions with…’ feature is compiled by Geoff Nason.