Pitching remains in question as Tide opens season

TUSCALOOSA | It's an often-echoed sentiment sure to be uttered hundreds if not thousands of times before opening day: “If we can just get a little pitching, this could be our year.”

Hope springs eternal with baseball fans this time of year, and as the University of Alabama baseball team prepares for its first pitch Saturday, many Crimson Tide fans are hoping for a rejuvenated pitching staff.

While there is genuine enthusiasm and hope with new pitching coach Kyle Bunn directing the staff, the general consensus about the Crimson Tide remains that its pitching will again be the weak link.

Just don't tell that to Alabama, which becomes irritable when told its pitchers can't match the offense's production.

“I would say that I made them have a chip on their shoulder about it,” Bunn said. “I think it's important for them to understand that until they believe in themselves, nobody else is going to believe in them. That's one thing that I really wanted to establish with them is that, ‘We can do this. You are a good pitching staff. You can be a special pitching staff.'”

Alabama lost Austin Hyatt and Del Howell from last year's rotation but returns promising left-handed sophomore Adam Morgan, who will be called upon as the No. 1 starter.

As a freshman, Morgan went 4-2 with a 4.17 ERA in nine starts, including a 11-5 win against top-ranked Georgia in which he pitched 71⁄3 innings and gave up four runs on eight hits and two walks while striking out nine.

If the Tide has postseason aspirations, Morgan, whose dad Wiley was a pitcher on UA's 1983 College World Series team, will have to set the tone for a beleaguered staff.

“There's always something to prove,” Morgan said. “I kind of like it, being the underdog and being told that the hitting is always going to be good and the pitching is just, ‘If they do good then we'll be good.' I like pressure situations. Being under pressure a lot you find out who guys are.”

Six-foot-6, right-handed junior Jimmy Nelson is the team's No. 2 starter followed by either Jonathan Smart or Jason Townsend, depending on the matchup, and Columbus, Ga., freshman Taylor Wolfe penciled in as the team's fifth spot.

Nelson picked up two wins and two saves in 2009 and has a 5-6 career record with a 5.45 ERA.

Smart, a former Paul W. Bryant and Shelton State standout, missed all of last season after having Tommy John surgery on his left elbow.

Townsend is a junior college transfer from Chipola in Marianna, Fla., who went 4-2 with a 4.32 ERA in 11 appearances in 2009, and Wolfe is a 6-foot, 170-pound left-hander.

The bullpen returns veterans Tyler White, Adam Scott and Jake Smith with freshmen Adam Windsor and Matt Taylor expected to play a vital role.

Smith, who serves as the Tide's third baseman and part-time closer, said the staff impressed during scrimmages.

“I would put us right up there at the top because this team is very resilient as far as, you don't get to see it much in practice, but when we started scrimmaging, the games got pretty intense,” Smith said.

Through two weekends that saw 32 innings of baseball, a total of nine pitchers held the productive Alabama offense to about four or five runs a game during four scrimmages, Alabama coach Mitch Gaspard said.

“I don't know that there's a better offensive lineup than those first five or six guys anywhere in the country. So the fact that we're getting those guys out says a lot,” Gaspard said. “When we score five runs or more, we win about 86 percent of the time. I think we're going to be able to hold people under five runs. That's our target and where we want to get to particularly in SEC play.

“I think there's going to be a lot of pride within that pitching staff. They're just going to grow and get better as the year goes on.

“It's evident there's just a little difference (in this year's staff). The velocity is increasing and getting there, but pitchability is what we're excited about -- guys being able to locate and attacking the strike zone and throwing three pitches for a strike. Over time we're going to see that the pitching staff is going to grow into being very formidable.”

Reach Aaron Suttles at aaron.suttles@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0229.