Feb. 27, 2007
Notre Dame sophomore righthander David Phelps (Hazelwood, Mo.) has been named to the BIG EAST Conference weekly baseball honor roll, after his strong effort led a 4-1 win over a TCU team that entered last week ranked as high as 12th in the nation. Phelps – whose 0.82 season ERA currently ranks third among BIG EAST pitchers with 11-plus innings – struck out five of the 24 TCU batters he faced while limiting the Horned Frogs to five hits, one walk and an unearned run in six full innings, during the Baseball at the Beach tournament in Myrtle Beach. Phelps’ first win of the season pushed his overall record to 3-0 in his young college career.
Phelps currently owns one of the top season ERAs (0.82) among BIG EAST pitchers (photo by Pete LaFleur).
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(Note: comments from Phelps following the TCU game are included below.)
Phelps earlier pitched well enough to win on the season’s opening weekend, when he allowed a solo home run and settled for a no-decision in a 2-1 loss to Texas State. He currently leads the Irish pitching staff in strikeouts (12) and innings pitched (11.0), in addition to owning team-best totals for strikeouts per 9.0 innings (9.8) and innings per appearance (5.50). He is averaging more than 21 outs per 9.0 innings via strikeouts or groundouts (11.5) and four of his 11 Ks have come on called third strikes. Phelps’ other primary season stats include 11 hits allowed (nine singles, a double and the home run), a .256 opponent batting average, no wild pitches and just one hit batter.
Among BIG EAST pitchers who have logged at least 11 innings this season, only two – Louisville’s Zack Pitts (0.00) and South Florida senior/Duke transfer Danny Otero (0.41) – currently own lower ERAs than Phelps (whose 14 Ks are 7th-most among all BIG EAST pitchers).
Situationally, Phelps ranks fourth among the Irish pitchers in three different categories: opponent batting average with runners on base (.150; 3-for-20), opp. batting by righthanded hitters (.233; 7-for-30), and opponent leadoff on-base pct. (.273; 3-of-11). His 9-inning walk average of 2.45 also is 4th-best on the staff while his groundout total (14) is most among the Irish pitchers.
Postgame comments from Phelps follow below:
One bad pitch – that led to a solo home run by Texas State – is all that has kept Phelps from currently owning a 0.00 ERA and possible 2-0 season record (photo by Pete LaFleur).
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David Phelps Postgame Comments (ND 4, TCU 1; Feb. 24, 2007; Myrtle Beach, S.C.) – “Coach [Sherard] Clinkscales and I have talked about staying positive through everything, the bad calls, everything like that. That was a big problem for me last year. I’d have a problem and I’d just get down and everything would just go wrong. … The biggest thing [with tough situations in the game] is just you have to make pitches with runners on – whether it’s in the windup or from the stretch. I think that the thing to focus on was [Matt] Weglarz calling the pitches from coach Clink. There was a great defense behind me tonight and I just have to trust them. … [During the preseason] We worked on my delivery a little bit, just to tune me in. My leg kick is helping me slow down a lot now and that’s helping me stay a lot more consistent with my delivery and helping me get ahead in counts a little more. … Early in the fall and winter, we realized that I was leaning back when I would get my leg up. It was causing me to open up and all my pitches would end up low and away. We did a lot of drills that help me lean over now, and it helps me keep closed and stay straight through. … Yesterday was our fourth game outside, today our fifth. You get out here, you’re going to have errors. They’re physical errors, not mental errors. Our defense knows what they’re doing. We can’t do anything but trust them. We’ve got great defensive players. We just need to keep making our pitches and they’ll do their part as well. …
“I wasn’t sure if the new coaches would just come in and look at the numbers [from 2006]. They came in and gave everyone a fair chance, though. That was the biggest thing. They helped build up some confidence. The new set of eyes is definitely nice, because they didn’t have any set routine of what guys were going to do. We’ve got so many good arms that I’m excited. … It’s been fun. You can’t worry, because then things are going to be bad. Last night, one of our team captains, Mike Dury, was talking to us, telling us that last year we started off 2-5 and we had an amazing year. It’s the same thing on the mound. You’re going to have hard times, you just have to work through them. … We’ve had a lot of guys play a lot of positions and a lot of pitchers are getting innings. We’re trying to get a feel for our team right now. The coaches saw us play in the fall, but [until last week] they’d never been able to see us in an actual game before. They’re really excited about how things are going and staying positive. …
Phelps is part of a young staff that includes two juniors, three sophomores and a freshman among the top-six starter candidates (photo by Pete LaFleur).
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“A lot of people say that you can be a good scout or a good player, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be a good coach. Coach Clink knows what he’s doing. He played ball at Purdue, so he knows the routine. He knows what to say to pitchers when we’re doing bad. The teaching goes both ways, because it’s his first time coaching. There are some things that we might want to do that he’s not familiar with, but we all work together. That’s one of the reasons that our pitching staff is going to be successful this year – we’ve got a really good relationship.”