Column: Pitching prevails
Clark Ruhland, CT Sports Staff
April 26, 2007
Pitching. You can have the best hitters in the league, but pitching is what wins and loses games.
Ask the last-place New York Yankees about how important pitching is to win ballgames. They have the league-leading home run hitter in Alex Rodriguez with 14, but they can't escape the dreadful outings by their pitching staff.
The Virginia Tech baseball team may not be as good as the Yankees, but it is in the same predicament. Head coach Pete Hughes has had a tough time sleeping at night with the pitching staff he has. Before last night's 8-3 win against Radford, the Hokies (18-24) had lost the lead in 9 of their last 11, but had only come back to win one.
That means, at one point during eight of the last ten losses, Tech had enough runs to win, but pitching lost the handle on the games. Rob Whitley's outing last night against the Highlanders (8-29) was just what the doctor ordered for the ailing Hokies. He pitched six strong innings, allowing five hits. Most of all, Whitley didn't allow a single run.
"He's got good stuff, but he hadn't had any success this year. We needed that to happen tonight because we were so thin in our bullpen with the fact that we played two mid-week games."
As Whitley held Radford at bay, the Hokies used some key base-running and took advantage of the opposition's pitching. The Highlanders used seven pitchers last night. Seven. That's two more than they have used all season.
However, the story wasn't all pitching for the Hokies. Catcher Matt Foley, who has only started about half of Tech's games this season, launched a rocket over the left field wall in the seventh inning.
"It felt good. I've been struggling at the plate lately and I finally got something I could connect on," Foley said about his second home run of the season. "I anticipated the fastball, and then I hit it in the right spot."
As Foley rounded the bases, he was welcomed with a bombardment of hand-slaps on his helmet. Some of those hard hits came from Whitley, who picked up his first win of his collegiate career.
"Basically all I was trying to do was lead us to a win," said the freshman from Danville. "Given what happened last week here, we hadn't won a game since. I was glad to get that win."
Whitley's performance led to the first win for the Hokies in over two weeks. It marks the first win for the Hokies since April 16. After the game, Hughes asked for the game ball to be taken to the memorial out on the Drillfield.
"We're going to do that for every win," Hughes said. "It's an honor to do that stuff. If there's one team in the country that is truly playing for their school, it's our team right now. We're very proud to do it, and we hope to get more balls out to that Drillfield."
It's a little ironic how the pieces seem to fall, Whitley, the pitcher, picked up the win and will drop off the game ball.