Pitt baseball has third starting pitcher in Joseph Harvey

With the loss of Ethan Mildren to the MLB Draft last year, Pitt's baseball team was in need of a third starting pitcher. The team has tried a few options, but seems to have settled on right-hander Joseph Harvey. The redshirt junior got his chance and looks like the Panthers' official third starter.

True freshman T.J. Zeuch has gotten his chances, but has been used more in the midweek games lately and in relief. Harvey, for all intents and purposes, is Pitt's third starting pitcher for the time being. Not only that, but he is moving up in the rotation as he's been the Panthers' No. 2 starter lately behind Rhys Aldenhoven and the struggling Matt Wotherspoon.

Harvey hasn't been perfect, but has been serviceable with a 3.81 ERA. He was hit around against North Carolina in the finale of that series a few weeks ago, but since then has been pretty solid. In the Panthers' next weekend series against Virginia Tech, Harvey got the nod and kept the Hokies to two runs in his four innings of work. Last weekend against Duke, he was flat out dominant, striking out eight in 6 2/3 innings and not giving up a single earned run.

Harvey is again penciled in as the starter for Saturday against ranked Georgia Tech.

On the season, Harvey is 1-1 with four starts and seven total appearances. In 26 innings, he struck out 22 batters. Harvey has been a reliever for the most part up until lately, so his innings have probably been kept a bit short because of that. But going nearly seven innings last weekend, he could get longer appearances as the season goes on.

We'll have to see if he can keep it up the rest of the season, but so far Harvey is proving to be a good third option for the Panthers.

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