GRANVILLE — Had it been this time last season, Aidan Major’s day would have been done.
A visit to the mound from WVU manager Randy Mazey usually meant just one thing back then: an exit sign to the dugout.
Those days now appear long gone.
“I actually told coach Mazey when he said I was going to be (the opening) starter, that you just did the worst thing you could if you wanted me in the bullpen, because now you’re not getting the ball back,” Major said Thursday, as the Mountaineers took out BYU 10-4 in the Big 12 opener at Kendrick Family Ballpark. “That’s just who I am as a person and who I am as a competitor.
“You give me a job, I’m going to execute that job to the best of my ability.”
That’s exactly what Major, a junior from Mill Hall, Pa., has done this season.
Against the Cougars (6-6, 0-1 Big 12), who were playing their first conference game as a Big 12 member, Major was near unhittable through six innings and then gutted his way through two more.
He is a perfect 3-0 on the season and allowed eight hits and four runs Thursday, while striking out eight and walking just one.
“He’s throwing his fastball on both sides of the plate and he’s throwing two different breaking balls right now,” Mazey said of Major. “He’s doing everything you’re supposed to do to win games.”
That fastball hit 95 mph on the radar all the way through the eighth inning, which is what he threw as a mid-week starter his freshman season.
An early-season shoulder injury kept him in the bullpen for most of last season, which is where Mazey projected Major would stay.
Then WVU was hit with some injuries, Major got the call to be a starter again and he’s been one of the best in the Big 12 so far.
“It keeps you on your toes,” Major said about shifting back and forth. “In the bullpen, you have to try and figure out where you fit in with the bullpen and it was a transition for me and I struggled with it.
“The transition to this year, we had to move things around. I’ve come out, and I don’t want to say I expected to do this, but as a competitor, there is an expectation you have for yourself. In my mind set, I’m pitching every pitch of the game. I’m not coming out.”
There is a dramatic difference in Major now, having gone from promising freshman to what he’s working his way into two years later.
In his own words, Major said it was about learning from mistakes — “Sometimes there were more mistakes than there was learning,” he joked. — but along the way Major went from a guy who could throw hard to being a more complete pitcher.
“I had to learn how to throw 95,” he said. “Not just being able to do it, but being able to put it where you want to. You have to set up 95. I developed a cutter, which has helped. Being able to learn how to sequence and tunnel my stuff and be able to command it and have the trust, that’s kind of been the biggest thing for me.”
WVU (8-6, 1-0) played its 10th straight game without J.J. Wetherholt, and was also without sluggers Grant Hussey and Logan Sauve, who are also dealing with recent leg injuries.
Mazey said there is no immediate timetable for their returns.
“Right now I can beat J.J., Sauve and Hussey in a race, so they’re not ready to play,” Mazey said. “Today, they were better than they were yesterday. Tomorrow, they’ll be better than they were today. That’s all I can say.”
In their place, Ellis Garcia, Sam White and Kyle West each drove in two runs, which helped the Mountaineers take a 9-1 lead before Major finally showed he was human by giving up a triple and two home runs in the eighth inning.
“He’s always had good stuff, but you have to learn how to win games,” Mazey said. “He’s still learning, but he’s made great progress.
“When I went out there in the eighth inning with two outs, he said, ‘Do not take me out, I got this guy.’ ”
