Jarrett's Irish Already Display Resiliency, More Notes
There was no charter jet; only a bus.
So as Notre Dame embarked upon its season-opening slate of games last weekend, the Irish baseball team logged several hours in wintry conditions along I-80 en route to Midway Airport.
Slow traffic. Flight delays. Then finally arriving to their team hotel in Deland, Florida, well into the wee hours of Friday morning, and staring down a trio of games.
As it turned out, the Fighting Irish, who opened the season No. 4 in Baseball America, would start the third game of their weekend set some 54 hours after arriving at their hotel – from 3 a.m. Friday till Sunday’s first pitch at 9 a.m.
“I’ll just start from the top, we didn’t get to our hotel rooms till about 2:45 in the morning Friday, and it takes a while to get that many people settled in,” third-year ND coach Link Jarrett told Irish Sports Daily. “That’s about as grueling out of the gate travel situation as you could draw up.
“The toughness of those guys to kind of rebound from a 14-hour travel experience the day before to play the way we played Friday was remarkable. These kids, they’re special kids, exceptional, their transition from classes to practice, to leave here and be up and at-em, ready to go, and I give a lot of credit to Rich (Wallace) and Chuck (Ristano) for their work on our scouting reports. They do such a good job.”
With a 2-1 start to their campaign, the only blemish a walk-off loss to Delaware Sunday morning before they rushed back to South Bend, Indiana, the Fighting Irish now are set to battle through four games this weekend in Greenville, S.C., against Marist and Monmouth. All contests will be played at Fluor Field, the mini-Fenway Park replica that’s home to the Boston Red Sox’s Class A affiliate.
Logistics once again had the Irish on a couple of bus rides; they again headed to Chicago to depart, then flew to Charlotte, N.C., before they bused down to Greenville.
“These are good teams, Monmouth has a couple of pitchers who are going to be high draft picks,” Jarrett said. “I saw exactly what I thought we would see last weekend and now we have to grow from that.
“Learning the bullpen for us is going to be critical the next couple of weeks (before Atlantic Coast Conference play begins). I want to see us play a similar style, and I’m pleased with the athleticism of our team, the overall cleanliness and tempo of our games, was really exactly what you want. Now, top to bottom, we have to be a little more consistent. And we still need that left-hand bat to provide some sort of production for us, somewhere in the middle third, 5-6-7, of our lineup.”
STARTING ROTATION
Game 1, Friday, 4 p.m.: ND LHP Aidan Tyrell (1-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Marist TBD
Game 2, Saturday, 2 p.m.: ND LHP John Michael Bertrand (1-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Monmouth RHP Dan Klepchick (0-0, 0.00)
Game 3, Saturday, 6 p.m.: ND TBD vs. Monmouth RHP Reed Interdonato (0-0, 4.50)
Game 4, Sunday, 12 p.m.: ND RHP Austin Temple (0-0, 3.60) vs. Marist, TBD
FEEL THE BREEZE
Since last fall, and really even prior to that, Jarrett & Co. began to look at the future roadmap for success from the Irish pitching staff and prioritized ratcheting up strikeout numbers, even as Notre Dame played masterful defense a year ago and returned almost wholly intact.
In using nine pitchers across last weekend’s opening trio of contests, the Irish amassed 40 strikeouts (while their own offense struck out only 17 times).
It was, as debuts go, almost precisely what Jarrett had in mind – particularly considering Notre Dame still has multiple key arms left to debut this season.
“To think about how much time we spent on that element, on the extended lane of the secondary pitch and what works for each guy, whose up fastball plays, how and where our catchers set up, when to block, that’s all so important,” Jarrett said. “That metric of the ability to punch people out on the mound is one of the most consistent indicators for elite teams and teams that find a way to Omaha (and the College World Series).
“The timing of those punchouts, sometimes with baserunners on and key points of game. Phenomenal start. Offensively, I felt we battled, and we didn’t rack up some of the punchouts that at times last year I felt we did a little bit. It’s very exciting. Need to drive the ball into the gaps a little bit more on our less-than-two-strikes hitting, trying to get to that 33% extra-base hit mark.”