In his first baseball media availability on Jan. 29, Tennessee baseball coach Dave Serrano told reporters the biggest challenge he faced for the upcoming season was defining roles for the pitching staff.
More specifically, Serrano said he was having difficulty determining the starting pitchers for the weekend rotation, claiming he had 10 pitchers worthy of holding starting positions.
But on Monday, the UT head coach provided some clarity in that department.
In his first press luncheon of the season, Serrano announced Monday that righty Bret Marks will be the starting pitcher for the season opener on Friday against Florida International, with left-hander Drake Owenby going Saturday, and Kyle Serrano starting Sunday.
“I feel with those three young men, we have a formidable SEC-type rotation,” Serrano said.
After being limited last season with an injury, Marks won the Friday starting spot after a great fall performance – one that quickly caught the eye of fellow pitcher Andy Cox.
“The guy who has impressed me most is Bret Marks,” Cox said. “I mean, he is a dude. He is a bulldog.
“It doesn’t matter who we are playing, he is going to go and he is going to show up and he is just going to shut a team down and that is what you want to see on a Friday night.”
Serrano also confirmed righty Hunter Martin will start UT’s Feb. 18 home opener against Tennessee Tech.
He also suggested the current weekend pitching rotation might not be permanent.
“We have some flexibility,” Serrano said. “And that is why I feel so confident.”
Cox’s Role- Although Serrano said Cox was special last season and was a quality Friday night starter, the UT head coach has a different role for Cox in 2015.
Serrano gave a simple explanation for not including Cox in the weekend rotation. He doesn’t want to use Cox just once in a weekend. Instead, when the outcome of a game is in question, Serrano wants his best pitcher on the mound.
“Some of my best pitchers throughout my career have been my closers,” Serrano said. “Because you can use them more than one time. You play at least four games a week and the schedule we play and in the SEC, the games are going to be tight. And he is going to be the guy that the majority of the time, unless he tells me he can’t take the ball that day, he is going to have the ball when the game is on the line.”
While moving from starter to closer can often be a difficult transition for a pitcher, Cox said he has the same approach to pitching whether he starts the game on the mound or trots out of the dugout.
“I just go in there and have confidence,” Cox said. “I just throw my pitches the way I do and let the defense work for me.”
Culture Change- When Serrano became the Tennessee baseball coach in 2011, he inherited a baseball program that had suffered losing seasons in three of the last four years.
Serrano had taken his past two teams, UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton, to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. Tennessee hired him to lead the baseball team to the same destination.
Yet the rebuilding process has been long and difficult for Serrano, who has posted a 77-84 record in four-year coaching tenure at Tennessee and has failed to make regionals while at Tennessee.
“It has been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be,” Serrano said on the rebuilding process. “It’s been very trying. It’s been challenging. I have been very spoiled in my career, I have been part of some really good programs.
“That is part of the reason that drew me back here. I have a lot of pride for the orange and the Power T, and I wanted to help be part of resurrecting this program to the once proud days that it once was.”
After three seasons of assembling his own recruiting classes, Serrano believes his team has the talent to compete against any team in the nation.
According to Serrano, confidence will be crucial in taking the big step from an up-and-coming team to a team ready to make a run to Omaha.
“The big challenge for this team is feeling like they belong now,” Serrano said. “That they belong as an upper-echelon team in the SEC, that they belong as a ranked team in the nation and we need to go respond that way and play that way each and every day.”
Junior A.J. Simcox has enjoyed witnessing the change in expectations for the baseball team.
“When I first came here, we were a little down to say the least,” Simcox said. “To see the program grow throughout my career here, it has been unbelievable.”
