‘I’m not here to make friends’: Eric Wedge pushes WSU baseball forward with AAC sweep
In the midst of a disappointing season, the Wichita State baseball team was able to make its final weekend at Eck Stadium memorable.
The Shockers have snapped out of their mid-season funk that saw them lose 16 of 17 games at one point to win six of their last nine games, including a three-game sweep over a solid Tulane squad this past weekend in their final American Athletic Conference home series of the season.
It’s been a disappointing follow-up to a season where the Shockers won 31 games and finished third in the AAC in Wedge’s first full season. With at least six games left on the schedule, WSU (19-32, 8-13 AAC) needs two more wins to avoid the lowest win total in a full season since the program was revived in 1978.
But for one weekend at least, the team could celebrate.
“The first half of the season I was disappointed with the upperclassmen and I felt like the underclassmen were overwhelmed,” WSU manager Eric Wedge said. “But I do think the attitude in the second half of the season has made a difference. There are still upperclassmen and underclassmen who aren’t getting it done, but the overall persona of the team has been much better and really that’s what it is.
“I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to establish something and win. Those who can handle that will be a part of it and those who can’t will not.”
Wedge hopes the improved play can be sustained for the stretch run: the Shockers play their final home game at 6 p.m. Monday against Oklahoma, then travel to Tampa to face South Florida in their final three-game AAC series before competing in the double-elimination AAC tournament in Clearwater from May 24-29.
WSU is currently sixth in the eight-team conference, although the Shockers sit just two games back from Tulane and Cincinnati, who are tied for fourth place, and could have a chance to move up with strong play against USF, the last-place team in the conference.
“I feel like over the last three weeks, our attitude has been great and I feel like we’ve turned a corner,” Wedge said. “I know our season has been nowhere near what we wanted it to be, but ultimately we’re playing a lot of young players who are getting a lot of experience right now. Ideally, we want to bum rush this thing and take this momentum to the conference tournament and see what happens.”
Over the course of the season, Wedge has turned more to underclassmen in his starting lineup.
WSU routinely starts up to seven underclassmen with sophomores Chuck Ingram, Brock Rodden, Couper Cornblum and Seth Stroh, as well as freshmen Xavier Casserilla, Jordan Rogers and Payton Tolle.
Casserilla had a standout performance in the second victory over Tulane, an 18-8 run-rule this past Saturday, as he finished with two hits and seven RBIs, while Tolle added four hits and three RBIs and Ingram and Stroh each chipped in with three hits.
But the revelation of the Tulane series was Wedge’s decision to flip the pitching staff, as he decided to start relievers Caden Favors and Adam Ketelsen the first two games and bring starters Jace Kaminska and Cameron Bye in the middle innings to help close out the game.
The strategy worked: Favors threw three innings, then Kaminska threw the next 5⅓ innings and Connor Holden combined to pitch a six-hit shutout in a 2-0 victory on Friday. In Saturday’s game, the bullpen was roughed up for five earned runs in the first two innings, but Bye pitched the final six innings as the Shockers ran away for the 10-run victory.
While Tolle was a traditional starting pitcher in the finale, Wedge went to Holden, the team’s closer, in the sixth inning and the senior responded with a career-high four innings to close the door on a 4-3 victory.
“We’ve really struggled with our bullpen in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, so we decided to start a reliever and then bring in our starters to get us through those innings,” Wedge said. “It ended up working and we had a lot of guys step up in different circumstances, which was pretty cool.”
WSU had several seniors on the roster who celebrated a series sweep in their final AAC appearance at Eck Stadium: Ross Cadena, Garrett Kocis, Foster Gifford, Spencer Hynes, Holden, Ketelsen and Grayson Jones.
“I hope they can look at this as a greater experience,” Wedge said. “When you talk about being a senior, you’re not just talking about the last year or the last game at home. It should be the whole thing and what you get from it as you move forward, whether that’s in professional baseball or in life. We honored all of them (Sunday) and rightfully so. I’m just hoping that regardless of what they do, this has been something that can help carry them forever.”
This story was originally published May 16, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
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