Big lefty Berry maturing into bigger role on UVa staff

He took the mound with a 17-run cushion. The Wahoos were just five outs away from finishing off Wake Forest. He had taken the ball from Andrew Abbott, who spent the night mowing down the Demon Deacons.

Yet it was easily the most stressful situation that Jake Berry walked into out of the Virginia bullpen as a first-year last spring.

Abbott hadn’t just struck out 16 batters, two shy of matching the school’s single-game record, in his final start at Disharoon Park. The senior lefty also hadn’t allowed a hit. Making just the sixth appearance of his college career, Berry was tasked with not screwing up a shot at some history.

“It was all I was thinking about,” Berry recalled on Monday. “But it was exciting and luckily I could get two outs without giving up a hit and not mess it up for Andrew.”

Berry faced four hitters that night, with one reaching on an error and another on a walk. But he ended the frame with a strikeout before handing the ball off to Griff McGarry, who struck out the side in the ninth to complete the seventh no-hitter in program history.

It was the last time Berry would pitch for the Hoos last year. He watched from the bullpen as a veterans like Abbott and McGarry helped UVa advance to the College World Series for the fifth time in program history. But he has taken the lessons of that first season and applied them this year, earning the trust of the Virginia coaching staff as he has carved out a bigger role.

“He’s just starting to become a mature pitcher,” said UVa head coach Brian O’Connor, “that I think can do great things for us.”

Most recently, Berry was almost part of history against Wake Forest again on Saturday afternoon in Winston-Salem. The Wahoos were one out away from another no-hitter in the 8-0 victory. This time, Berry pitched the first five innings of the near no-no, striking out nine while walking four.

It was the first college start for the left-hander, who didn’t find out until breakfast that morning that he’d be subbing for fellow lefty Brian Gursky, who was scratched because of an illness. Once the initial excitement of the news subsided, Berry leaned on his preparation and took the ball with confidence. He stuck to the gameplan, knowing that in Wake’s small ballpark with the wind blowing out toward right field, any ball lifted in the air to the right side could carry out of the stadium. He knew he couldn’t leave any pitches hanging over the plate, especially with runners on base.

“I threw two pitches over the heart of the plate all game and both of them were hit hard,” he recalled. “One was foul; one was a groundout to Jake Gelof.”

Berry did not anticipate throwing 88 pitches, but after he stranded a runner at first after a leadoff walk in the fourth inning, he told pitching coach Drew Dickinson he still had enough stamina to go one more frame. He came back and worked around back-to-back one-out walks in the fifth to complete the longest outing of his college career.

“I knew as soon as I got the chance I would do well,” Berry said, “and I guess I proved that to myself and everybody else that when I was put in the spot that I was on Saturday, that I could do it.”

Berry felt like he had good command of his fastball all afternoon. O’Connor saw a sophomore who had his changeup working against right-handed hitters, and was able to drop his curveball in for strikes more consistently as the outing progressed.

It was Berry’s 10th appearance of the season, tied for most on the UVa staff. The five shutout innings lowered his ERA to 2.42 in 22 1/3 innings; the win improved his record to 3-0. Berry’s 38 strikeouts are second-most on the staff, as is his 15.3 strikeout-per-nine-innings.

O’Connor sees a pitcher who has learned to trust his stuff on the mound.

“I think there’s growth and maturity that’s happened there. He’s gotten to the point where he doesn’t feel like he has to strike everybody out to have success, that actually letting them put the ball in play is a good thing. He’s learning and developing.”

Berry has drawn from the lessons of being a freshman on a pitching staff stocked with veterans. He took note of how McGriff carried himself during a trying season, with an approach that never wavered whether he was pitching his way out of the weekend rotation early in the year or putting up dominant performances during the Wahoos’ run to Omaha. Berry also watched how Abbott handled his business as Virginia’s ace.

“Whenever he would give up a home run, it seemed like the next guy he struck out every time,” Berry pointed out. “What I learned from that is even the best pitchers in the country, best pitchers in the world, they’re gonna get hit. You can’t let that affect you. You’ve got to know that it’s just the next pitch, the next guy, and that’s something that I’ve taken to heart.”

Armed with those observations, Berry posted a 2.07 ERA in 17 1/3 regular-season innings for the Keene Swamp Bats of the New England Collegiate Baseball League last summer. He came back to UVa a more confident pitcher and had, as O’Connor described it, “the best fall of any of our pitchers.”

“He was dominant,” the head baseball coach added. “He was really, really good.”

That performance carried into the preseason, where Berry pitched his way into a reliable bullpen role. The 6-foot-10 lefty has such a long release that to hitters, it appears he’s throwing harder than the low 90s. A former high school basketball player, Berry is also the rare lanky pitcher with the athleticism to consistently repeat his delivery and cleanly field the position, O’Connor said.

But there are still lessons being learned. Berry admits that the previous weekend against Boston College, he was trying to be too precise in hitting spots as opposed to trusting his pitches—and he gave up a three-run home run in each of his two appearances against the Eagles. They’re the only two long balls he’s allowed this season.

Not trying to be too perfect on the mound is a message that pitching coach Drew Dickinson has been pushing since Berry first arrived in Charlottesville. Berry welcomed the opportunity to get back on the mound at Wake last weekend—even if it did come in an unexpected starting role.

“Like, my stuff’s good enough, just go throw strikes, go pound the zone, go execute and you’ll dominate,” Berry said of his new mindset. "That’s something that I saw this summer, and then kept seeing throughout the fall and preseason and then now in the season. I feel like I’ve done a good job of just staying with it and not getting too high or low with anything.”

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