MORGANTOWN — While baseball players are always judged based on their individual stats, rarely are games billed with a one-on-one matchup in mind.
“It’s such a team game, so it’s pretty hard to look at it as one guy against another,” WVU second baseman J.J. Wetherholt said.
That thinking may change at 4 p.m. Friday, as No. 12 WVU (37-12, 13-5 Big 12) gets set to host Texas Tech (34-16, 9-9) inside Mon County Ballpark.
See, there are plenty of ramifications out there during the three-game series, including the Mountaineers trying to hold onto first place in the Big 12, while the Red Raiders could bolster their NCAA-tournament fate by winning the series.
All of that may be secondary, as long as Wetherholt and Texas Tech first baseman Gavin Kash are on the field.
If Wetherholt is the favorite to become WVU’s first-ever Big 12 baseball Player of the Year, then it’s Kash playing the role as a close spoiler.
“I know he’s having a great year,” said Wetherholt, who is the nation’s leading hitter with a .470 batting average. “I try not to get too numbers-based when looking at other guys. I try to stay focused on myself, but it’s hard not to notice he’s having a great year.”
That may be sort of an understatement. While Kash’s .367 batting average is more than 100 points behind Wetherholt, the Texas Tech star is absolute money when it comes to his 23 home runs (third in the nation) and 80 RBIs, which is second in the country.
“I do a journal on my thoughts after every game,” Wetherholt said. “Something I wrote down the other day was I was starting to think too much about individual accolades. So, I need to get more focused on the team.
“Winning (Player of the Year) definitely has crossed my mind. It’s a cool goal to shoot for. Who wouldn’t want to win something like that? Right now, though, I’m thinking more about the team winning a Big 12 championship.”
The two heavy hitters, who have never met before, share more than just gaudy statistics.
Both are sophomores with one season of college eligibility remaining before they can think about being drafted.
And neither entered this season much in the way of high expectations.
Wetherholt did make all-Big 12 freshman team honors last season, but was not a preseason all-Big 12 pick this season.
Kash couldn’t even get on the field as a freshman at Texas last season. As a first baseman, he was behind Ivan Melendez, who won the Big 12 triple crown in 2022.
“Yeah, not many guys would have played in front of Melendez,” Wetherholt joked.
Kash transferred to Texas Tech in the offseason and has developed into a star player.
“He was in a tough spot at Texas as a freshman, just because they had so many older guys on the team last year,” Wetherholt said. “He’s definitely putting up big numbers at Texas Tech.”
Big numbers are certainly expected this weekend.
Texas Tech leads the Big 12 with a team batting average of .318, while WVU is tied for second at .305.
The Red Raiders are the Big 12’s runaway winners in runs scored (482) and RBIs (461), while the Mountaineers have already scored more runs and hit more home runs than they did all of last season.
Wetherholt is the major reason why. Along with his average, he’s also belted 14 home runs, while teammates Caleb McNeely and Grant Hussey have each added 11 more.
If Wetherholt and Kash have both exceeded expectations, the Mountaineers, as a whole, have done the same thing.
Picked to finish sixth in the Big 12 by the league’s coaches in the preseason, WVU needs four wins over its final six conference games to secure a Big 12 title.
“I know we’re first in the standings right now, but in our opinion, and probably most people’s opinion, most people aren’t exactly behind us yet,” Wetherholt said. “They’re expecting us to lose and that type of stuff. There’s probably a lot of people out there waiting for us to fall flat.”
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