CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The trio of bullpen specialists arrived here last week armed with fire and ferocity but not much fanfare. When you got to work every day at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, it’s sometimes easy, unfortunately, to fly under the national radar, even as the Raiders used a Horizon League Tournament championship to power their way into an NCAA Regional for the second time in five years and the third time since 2009.
Senior right-hander Andrew Elliott, junior righty Logan Blair and junior left-hander E.J. Trapino combined to make 120 appearances out of head coach Greg Lovelady’s pen this season before the Raiders played a game this weekend; Trapino and Blair both pitched in the No. 3-seeded Raiders’ 13-7 tournament-opening loss to No. 2 Notre Dame on Friday.
The heralded bullpen was not much of a factor on Sunday, either, as junior right-handed starter Jesse Scholtens threw eight effective eight-hit innings in an 8-2 elimination game victory No. 4 Ohio at Illinois Field. Blair did come on to pitch the ninth inning of the game which was completed 24 hours after it began at 1 p.m. on Saturday. WSU led 5-2 after two innings when the game went into a four-hour rain delay before being suspended at 5 p.m. Saturday and resumed at 11 a.m. Sunday.
That victory sent the Raiders into a second elimination game Sunday night against the loser of Sunday afternoon’s winner’s bracket game between No. 1 Illinois and No. 2 Notre Dame.
Elliott, Blair and Trapino – along with junior right-hander Jack Van Horn – have been Lovelady’s go-to guys all season, a campaign that resulted in an overall record of 41-15 coming into the regional, a Horizon League regular-season record of 21-8 and a 3-1 mark at the league tournament.
Throughout this season, Lovelady has unabashedly deferred to his bullpen. Scholtens and sophomore righty Trevor Swaney combined for 29 starts this season and averaged 5 1/3 innings an outing.
“Our bullpen is our strength,” Lovelady told PG emphatically. “Our starters don’t go very long – they’re not seven or eight inning starters – and if we can get five, six or seven innings out them we’ll turn it over to those three or four (relievers) and let them do their job.”
They’ve done their jobs well. In those 120 appearances before the regional, Elliott, Blair and Trapino combined to throw 129 1/3 innings, surrendering 30 earned runs (2.09 ERA) on 100 hits and 55 walks; their combined record was 15-4 with 13 saves.
Elliott, a 6-foot-1, 194-pounder from Wheelersburg, Ohio, was named the Horizon League Relief Pitcher of the Year for the second straight season after going 5-4 with 11 saves, a 2.44 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 28 appearances and 35 2/3 innings.
Blair (6-0, 196; Mount Vernon, Ind.) uses a side-arm delivery and went 2-0 with two saves, a 1.01 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 27 appearances and 44 1/3 innings. The lefty Trapino (5-9, 153; Richmond, Ill.) was 8-0 in 35 appearances as a set-up man, with a 2.55 ERA and 64 Ks in 49 1/3 innings.
“Everyone knows their role,” Trapino said. “We know that we can trust the guy behind you and you just have to get your job done and the next guys will have your back and will be able to get you out of jam if they need to. I know that if I come out and I’m pitching a really good game that I can hand the ball to Andrew Elliott and he’ll just pick me up and continue where I left off.”
This season has been both gratifying and challenging for the Raiders. Lovelady wanted his team tested early and scheduled back-to-back-to-back three-game road series against national powers Mississippi, Miami (Fla.) and Missouri State (Miami and Missouri State were awarded top-eight national seeds in the NCAA Tournament). The Raiders showed well, winning one game in each of the series. They were 6-6 when those series’ concluded and they went 35-9 the rest of the season.
The Horizon League is typically a one-bid league with only the conference tournament champion gaining entry into the NCAA Tournament. So despite the regular-season successes, the Raiders knew they had to take care of business at the conference tournament in Whiting, Ind., May 21-23. They did just that, beating Milwaukee twice (they also lost a game to Milwaukee) and Illinois-Chicago once on their way to the title.
“We just had a really good feeling about it going in,” Trapino said. “Everyone was just super excited to get out there and just be (ourselves). We knew we were the best team in the league and we just had to go out there and prove it.”
Lovelady had little doubt he was going to have a pretty good group of guys this year considering what he had coming back from a team that finished 35-22 overall and won the Horizon League regular-season championship by eight games after posting a 25-4 league mark.
Simple math, of course, explains why the Raiders didn’t get considered for an at-large bid even if such a thing happened to Horizon League teams: they went 10-18 against non-league foes. But Lovelady had a bunch of top-talent coming back from that team along with some new guys he felt would contribute immediately.
“We tried to stress a lot about playing our best baseball at the end of the season and we didn’t do that last year,” Lovelady said. “We talked a lot the last three weeks about controlling out own destiny … and every game mattered and how every game we were playing for a championship over the last three weekends.”
Each one of the three elite relievers brings something unique to the table. Blair, a converted is a side-armer and challenges hitters with a different look and constant diet of sinkers and sliders. He’s got some sink on his pitches and has good command of his fastball and guys like that just always seem hard to hit.
“Phenomenal” was the word Lovelady used to describe Trapino’s efforts this spring, noting that the left-hander has always been talented by had some command issues in the past. This year he’s been “lights-out” despite his smaller stature and a short arm-action. His velocity is decent and he hides the ball well and when he throws in the upper-80s a lot of hitters tend to think it’s coming in a little bit harder than that.
“He’s got four pitches that he commands and he’s got great arm-action on his off-speed stuff,” Lovelady said. “He’s dominated righties with his changeup and his curveball, and he can throw fastballs to both sides of the plate. So we’ve got kind of a softer sub-mariner and then a lefty with some juice, and then we can bring Andrew in who has been unbelievable for us.”
Added Trapino: “Honestly, the first two years I was at Wright State I’ve been really disappointed with my outcomes and the things I was doing. But I just kept working and it finally turned the corner during my junior year and I’m finally starting to kick it into the gear I wanted to be in.”
Lovelady doesn’t have a set-in-stone plan when it comes to using his bullpen. He doesn’t necessarily consider the righty-on-lefty or lefty-on-righty scenarios, relying instead on the gut feelings of he and his staff. He knows different teams have different preferences and different struggles, and he’s a big fan of watching film and reading scouting reports to get a feel for the opponent.
“Every situation is different … so there is a bunch of different options,” he continued. “What we see from a guy hitting during the first five or six innings will (dictate) what we’re going to do the rest of the game, but Andrew’s different; he’ll be there in the end. But in between the starter and Andrew, it’s just a match-up thing based on what we see.”
Lovelady played collegiately at the University of Miami (Fla.) and was the starting catcher on the Hurricanes’ national championship College World Series teams in 1999 and 2001. He graduated from The U in 2001 with a degree in finance and spent several years coaching in Coral Cables.
He came to Wright State in 2006 and for seven years before taking over the head coaching duties in 2013 he was the associate head coach, recruiting coordinator and pitching coach under former coach Ron Cooper. The Raiders advanced to NCAA Regionals in 2006, 2009 and 2011 with Loveland on the staff.
“I had a great career and I got to do a lot of things in college in terms of my baseball career,” Lovelady said. “My best memories of my life that I have right now – besides my wife and kids – are from college playing in these types of game and these types of atmospheres. I’m now trying to provide (similar memories) to these kids; that’s why I’m here.”
The trip to the NCAA Champaign Regional has been a gratifying one for the entire WSU ball club. Lovelady noted that the members of the team haven’t wiped the smile off of their collective face since winning the Horizon League Tournament championship a little over a week ago. The Raiders know they earned the postseason berth and they deserved to be here.
The guys working out of the bullpen are especially close and they spend a lot of time together on and off the field and they push each other to get better. But it’s not just them, either.
“This whole group, honestly, is just really good guys,” Trapino said. “We call each other the “Earthlings” – everyone’s just really weird – but everyone has a lot of fun together and it’s just great being a part of this team.”