Wichita State’s goal is positive thinking during a rough stretch of baseball

The first seven weeks of the season provided Wichita State’s baseball team plenty of reasons for a bad mood.

The Shockers lost 16 games, their top pitcher blew out his elbow and Oklahoma State bounced them by 17 runs at Eck Stadium. That makes coach Todd Butler’s pleas for positive energy easy to understand and difficult to execute. If two convincing wins over Stephen F. Austin this week helped, this weekend’s series against No. 8 TCU at Eck Stadium will test that trend.

“It’s tough to stay positive right now, considering our record’s not too great, but we have to,” reliever John Hayes said. “We have all the parts. The only thing standing in our way is ourselves.”

Since that loss to Oklahoma State last week, WSU (9-16) put together what might be an encouraging stretch with a shutout of Cal Poly and the wins over Stephen F. Austin — both top 100 RPI teams. It lost twice to Cal Poly, losing Sunday 7-6 when a bases-loaded rally ended in the ninth inning. Butler is pushing good attitudes as the best way the Shockers can regroup before Missouri Valley Conference play next week at Evansville.

“It’s not the pitching, it’s not the bats, it’s not the gloves and it’s not the players,” he said. “I think it’s been a mental thing. It’s what’s between the ears.”

Hayes would agree. While the performances of freshmen pitchers grabbed most of the attention in the wins over Stephen F. Austin, his two scoreless innings on Wednesday might be just as important. He struck out three, allowed one hit and didn’t walk a batter.

The Shockers need him to return to his reliable form of last season. Hayes, a senior, carried WSU’s bullpen with a 6-2 record, four saves and a 2.71 ERA.

“I haven’t been me most of the season,” he said. “It’s good to get a couple innings out there and know ‘Hey, I can do it again.’ ”

This season started badly when he gave up two walks and two singles — all with two outs — in the ninth inning to surrender a lead in a 4-3 loss to Northern Colorado. In the win against Cal Poly he struck out the side to preserve a 6-0 victory, but also hit the leadoff batter and issued a two-out walk. On Saturday against Cal Poly, he hit a batter and walked a batter to start the sixth inning, his only batters faced.

“He was ready to go (against Stephen F. Austin),” Butler said. “The other day, he wasn’t loose when we brought him in. I don’t think he had enough time to get loose, which we thought he did and he thought he did.”

After Wednesday’s rebound, Hayes is 0-2 with a 6.17 ERA and one save.

“I haven’t been throwing enough strikes,” he said. “More mental. I was kind of getting in my own way a little bit and maybe … I climbed over that barrier a little bit.”

When Hayes muscles up, his pitches tend to stay up in the strike zone. Hitters smack them or let them pass for balls. On Wednesday, Hayes backed off the velocity a bit and didn’t go to a three-ball count until facing his final hitter, an at-bat that ended with a strikeout.

“I was too amped up, overthrowing balls and not throwing how I throw,” Hayes said.

Seven weeks in, Wichita State’s season isn’t going like anybody hoped or expected. The Shockers aren’t even halfway through, which is time to repair the mental damage done so far by defeats and the loss of pitcher Sam Tewes to injury for a second consecutive season.

“We’ve been saying ‘Here we go again,’ when someone scores first,” Butler said. “Every guy here can play. That’s what we’ve been talking about all week — positive thinking instead of negative thinking.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 5:24 PM with the headline "Wichita State’s goal is positive thinking during a rough stretch of baseball."