MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia baseball coach Randy Mazey didn’t sugarcoat the situation his starting rotation will be in when the Mountaineers begin their season Feb. 14.
“We’re going to have a lot of guys who have never pitched before,” he said.
Following the success of last season’s team, which won 38 games and hosted a regional before a dramatic loss to Texas A&M in the regional final, the starting rotation took a major — but expected — hit when Alek Manoah, Kade Strowd and Nick Snyder all decided to forgo eligibility and play pro ball.
Manoah was taken 11th overall by the Blue Jays, while Snyder was taken in the 11th round by the Diamondbacks and Strowd was a 12th round pick by the Orioles. The trio was responsible for 260 innings in 44 starts, posting a 2.92 ERA and 334 strikeouts last season for the Mountaineers.
Sam Kessler, who was a backend of the bullpen arm, was fifth on the team in innings pitched with 36 2/3, and he is also gone, playing in the Tigers organization.
With major voids across the starting rotation, Mazey will rely heavily on veteran Jackson Wolf, who enters his junior campaign after posting a 2-4 record with a 5.17 ERA in 69 2/3 innings last year. Wolf, a 6-foot-7 lefty, is easily the most experienced pitcher on the staff and will likely be given the ball to start weekend series.
The rest of the staff will be a work in progress, but Mazey knows sophomore Ryan Bergert is going to have to be one of the relative unknowns to become a factor.
“Ryan Berget is going to be a workhorse for us,” Mazey said. “He had a great summer and pitched really well for us at the end of last year. Hopefully he’s a guy who can go out and give us seven-plus innings once the pitch counts go up. He’s a strike-thrower with some quality pitches.
“Between him and Wolf, those are guys that are capable, if they get hot, of winning 8-10 games.”
Berget had an impressive first season at WVU last season, earning all-Big 12 tournament team. He tossed 34 innings and posted a 1.85 ERA, but in his final 10 appearances – 19 1/3 innings – he didn’t allow a run.
While he only had two starts in his 19 total appearances, he is built to be a starter. With the losses from last year’s team, Bergert knew he needed to be a strong member of the rotation, likely as a weekend starter behind Wolf.
Over the summer, he played for the Santa Barbara Foresters in the California Collegiate League.
“I threw a lot of innings and really worked on my craft,” Bergert said. “I wanted to get the flow of things, get used to starting, and overall, it went really well.”
He posted a 34 to 8 strikeout to walk ratio in 22 2/3 innings, going 2-1 with a 1.99 ERA.
Behind Bergert, though, the Mountaineers will rely on inexperience. Figuring out a Sunday and midweek starter will be key during the early season trips south before Big 12 play begins.
Lefty freshman Jake Carr, a St. Albans native, will be an option, as well as sophomore Brock Helverson and freshman Carter Lyles.
“We have a lot of good transfers and freshmen that came in,” junior catcher Paul McIntosh said. “Everyone is going to be able to come in and contribute right away. Any person that [Mazey] puts out there will have a chance to prove themselves.”
WVU will open its season Feb. 14 at Jacksonville and play a three-game weekend series. The home-opener will be Feb. 18, the earliest in school history, at 2 p.m. against Canisius.
