Sherman’s powerful one-two combo of starting pitchers Kyle Crick and Tyler Liss has moved on to bigger and better things, leaving second-year head coach Art Senato with some new arms on the hill this spring.
But several candidates are in place to lead the Bearcats back toward another shot at the playoffs, and most members of an extremely solid infield are back.
The Bearcats will open the 2012 season today against Pflugerville Connally in the Copperas Cove tournament. Sherman’s first home game will be next Tuesday at Veterans Field against McKinney Boyd.
Gone are Crick, who is now in the San Francisco Giants’ farm system, and Tyler Liss, who now plays for Grayson County College. The Bearcats rode the duo to a 25-11 record and a bi-district playoff win.
But the Bearcats have plenty of pitchers waiting in the wings.
Senior Chris Gittens, who saw plenty of relief action and some spot starting duty in 2011, steps into the No. 1 role. Last year, Gittens was 4-0 with a 1.83 earned-run average, and two of every three of his first pitches were for strikes.
Gittens, who has already signed with Grayson, is up around the 90-mph range with his fastball.
“Is he going to be a supplemental-round pick like Crick? Probably not. But we don’t need him to be that,” Senato said. “We just need him to be … the guy we give the ball to in district and a guy that’s going to give us a great chance to win. I fully expect him to be that ace.”
Senior Blake Liss will be Sherman’s No. 2 starter. Liss follows in the footsteps of his brother, and Senato said Blake closely resembles Tyler, only from the right side.
“He’s not a power pitcher like Gittens,” Senato said. “He’s got three or four different pitches he can throw for strikes. He locates his fastball real well. He’s definitely our No. 2.”
An up-and-comer is sophomore Case Rolen, who’ll get a start this weekend in the tournament. Rolen pitched well at times during Sherman’s preseason scrimmages.
“The whole thing with Case is to be consistent around the strike zone,” Senato said. “Velocity-wise, he’s got the second-best arm on the team. The thing that helped Case this year was playing football. He didn’t play football his freshman year, but he’s a lot stronger this year.”
On the diamond, it all begins with four-year starter Gus Daniel, who’s been primarily a catcher but has played infield as well. Daniel batted .350 last year with 24 RBI.
“Gus is going to play a lot of different things for us this year,” Senato said. “He’ll catch, he’ll play short, and he’ll pitch for us. He pitched really well in the scrimmages. Gus is just a ballplayer.”
Sophomore Will Olson will alternate with Daniel at catcher, and Daniel will in turn alternate with Liss when Liss pitches. Zach McKinney returns at third, and speedy Cody Hunter will start at second base.
When Gittens isn’t pitching, he’ll play first base. Gittens was the Bearcats’ big stick last season with eight home runs, and his .368 is the highest average among returning regulars.
“In our last scrimmage against Byron Nelson, first base was open and they walked him three times,” Senato said. “That’s good because he didn’t swing at balls and he took walks. I’ll have Gus Daniel batting behind him, so if you want to pitch around Chris Gittens, then fine.”
Rolen and junior Chris Goosen will be looked at to play first when Gittens pitches.
With the loss of Tyler Perkins, Tyler Liss and Ryan McBride to graduation, outfield is Senato’s biggest worry. Senato said he will start Liss in centerfield in today’s opener and may even play Daniel some to shore up the outfield.
“That outfield (last year) was a really good defensive outfield,” Senato said. “That’s been the big project this year, to find some outfielders. They don’t have to be spectacular; they just have to be solid.”
As strong as Sherman’s pitching was last year, the Bearcats struggled at times to score runs. This year, the team is working on manufacturing runs and is not as free-swinging.
“Especially with the new bats this year, runs are going to be at a premium,” Senato said. “We’ve added a couple of things to our offensive playbook. We have more team speed this year than we did last year, and that’s going to help us. Last year, outside of Tyler Perkins, we couldn’t steal a base.”
The new BBCOR bats, which are supposed to reduce the number of dangerous line drives, are being introduced to high school baseball for the first time this spring.
“The idea behind it is to reduce the trampoline effect off the bat,” Senato said. “With the old bats, the trampoline effect was greater. You could alter the composite bats to increase the trampoline effect by rolling it. You could increase fly balls by 40 or 50 feet.”
Senato said with sluggers like Gittens, the new bat standard won’t make that much of a difference.
“When you square the ball up and hit it on the sweet spot, the ball still goes,” Senato said. “Gittens has hit two home runs in our scrimmages. He hit one to the opposite field, and he hit one here off the end of the bat and it still went out. To me, if you can hit, you can hit. It’s not the wand, it’s the magician.”
