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Earlier this year, Pitt baseball coach Joe Jordano talked about the exciting group of recruits coming into the program. I wrote then that some strides needed to be made in 2018 and in a recent interview with the official Pitt website, Jordano indicated that himself.
We are right there, but we must make a jump this season and I feel confident we are well-positioned. We have to stay healthy and play our game, but on paper this is a very good baseball team and they showed it on the field this fall.
By ‘this fall’, Jordano was referring to the scrimmages the team played. Pitt looked very good in those games but obviously that’s not a true indication of what we can expect to see from the team next year.
The team was decent in 2016 (25-26) and, as Jordano points out, they lost some players to the Major League Draft and to injuries following that season. But in the four years since joining the ACC, they’ve been significantly below .500 in three of them. The program seemed to be making strides after a 42-win season in 2013 while still in the Big East but that success never translated to the much more difficult ACC.
Pressure on Olympic sports seems to be at an all-time high with Pitt committing more resources to try to field more competitive programs. That means that programs like baseball that have been struggling a bit are going to be on a much shorter leash. The baseball program isn’t terrible, mind you. They’ve had many players drafted and in some cases, have even seen guys go in early rounds. And Pitt has also had some big wins in recent years, including securing a handful of wins over top five teams.
But, overall, those big wins have been few and far between and have also been individual victories while still losing overall series’. Despite playing in the ACC, you get to a point where you’ve got to find a way to be more competitive and win more games.
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