MORGANTOWN — It would be easy to point to a few stats as the reason why WVU baseball coach Steve Sabins elected to bring Grant Hussey off the bench over the three games it took the Mountaineers to win the Clemson Regional.
Sabins, knowing the Mountaineers would likely face a ton of left-handed pitchers in the region, pointed to one stat himself.
“Hussey’s performance against left-handers helped us get a little bit closer to that decision,” Sabins said.
Yet it wasn’t just batting averages or analytics that played into Sabins’ choice to start sophomore Ben Lumsden at first base in all three games and bring Hussey — a former Parkersburg South standout — off the bench.
“There’s a multitude of factors,” Sabins said. “There were a thousand reasons that weren’t isolated to Grant.
“That’s where people get confused sometimes is that decisions are made to a player. Decisions are made only and strictly for the team.”
Hussey is the school’s all-time home run leader with 44 over his career. He’s also third on the program’s all-time list with 213 starts and he’s the only player on the roster who has played in all 58 games this season.
To suddenly see Lumsden at first base in the NCAA tournament was a bit unusual.
Sabins said the decision should be viewed as calculated rather than unusual.
“You’re essentially taking (Hussey’s) skill set versus the opposing pitching and then you have to make a decision on if there’s another player that we think is on our team who may be able to help us win more often,” Sabins said. “I felt like, in this circumstance, it was viewed as a one-for-one, where you take Grant out and put in Ben Lumsden, but it was more complicated than that. It was not a one-out and one-in kind of thing.”
As the Mountaineers (44-14) get set to travel to No. 6 overall seeded LSU (46-15) — Game 1 of the three-game series is 2 p.m. Saturday — Sabins said how he elects to use Hussey is still up in the air.
“There are games moving forward, maybe Grant will start or maybe Grant will come off the bench,” Sabins said. “He’s not used to that, but by the end, he had really turned the page. He handled it like a pro and performed at a high level.”
If Hussey comes off the bench, expect to see him as a defensive replacement in close games.
“We need him at first base, especially late in games,” Sabins said. If I want to take some risks and think there might be a better at-bat matchup earlier offensively, the risk is that we might struggle defensively. That’s where you saw, like in the fourth or fifth inning if we had a tie game, you have to put Grant in the game.”
“Intelligent risks”
The major difference between playing in a four-team regional and a two-team super regional is the number of games.
It’s possible a team could play up to as many as five games to capture a regional championship, while a super regional is either going to be two or three games.
Utilizing a pitching staff in a regional is more difficult, because coaches have to limit innings pitched in case of a deciding game the next day.
In a super, you need two wins anyway you can get them.
“This week is easier to go all-in,” Sabins said. “It’s like anything, you need aggressive and intelligent risks for you to win.
“It’s crazy (in a regional), because you can push all your chips in, but then the score can change and you have to pull a couple back, which you can’t do on a poker table.”
Sabins said the scores of the game will still dictate how many pitching changes he needs, but there won’t be any holding back.
“If you have a chance to win the game, in general our philosophy has been to be aggressive, because we think our offense can score in bunches,” Sabins said. “You certainly don’t ever want to give the team the feeling that you’re playing for tomorrow, so you have to keep going.”
Bottom of the order
The Mountaineers might be the only team in the super regionals who can’t wait to get to the bottom of their batting order.
Lumsden, along with Brodie Kresser and Armani Guzman combined to hit .447 (17 of 38) in the Clemson Regional. They scored eight runs and drove in 12.
Guzman, who bats ninth in WVU’s lineup, was named the regional’s MVP after hitting .667 with six RBIs.
“I bet there’s never been a nine-hole hitter who has been a tournament MVP,” Sabins said. “I would imagine that’s the case. What he did was epic.”
Sabins said there is a great feeling as a coach to see players at the bottom of the order producing, but it also begs another question:
“If your seven-through-nine hitters are winning regionals, should those guys be your one-through-three hitters? Like, what in the heck are you doing?” Sabins said. “There’s always a balance of trying to keep it in perspective, but it was incredible.”
