Photo by: Joe Sullivan
Start Spreading The News, The Ball's Leaving Today
May 24, 2023 | Baseball, #ForBoston Files
Joe Vetrano's packed enough of a punch to send a few balls back towards his native New York.
Any Red Sox fan walking through Kenmore Square last Friday night must have been confused at what they heard. The lights were on at Fenway Park, and the raucous cheers of a frothing crowd could be heard echoing across the David Ortiz Bridge spanning the Mass Pike's underpass. A couple of hours earlier, fans packed bars and restaurants as they excitedly talked about an upcoming baseball game. On any other night, it would have felt like a typical game day around the Fenway area.
But to that fan walking towards the Green Line's escalators, the sound emanating from Fenway must have sounded, well…weird. It was a familiar song from an older era, and the voice was unmistakable. It was one of the most popular songs of all-time, but there was no way - no way - it was playing at Fenway Park. That would have been sacrilege, though the lyrics left no mistake about which song blared out over the Boston night:
It's up to you, New York. New Yorrrrrrk.
Sinatra. The theme of the hated New York Yankees. At Fenway Park. Whoever had the bold impudence to do that must have really had some nerve.
Well, to be fair, that fan might not have known that it was a Boston College baseball game and the hitter playing that song grew up emulating Derek Jeter. He was a New Yorker and a Yankee fan, but those cheers, the ones feeling like Rafael Devers went yard against some hapless American League pitcher, were for him. He had already blasted a homer in the front end of the Eagles' doubleheader, and after hitting a second dinger to the deepest part of centerfield, Joe Vetrano had just crushed a second Fenway knock.
He was thriving at the plate, and after driving in four runs on Tuesday as part of BC's first game of the ACC Tournament, the unmistakable surge provided by the power-hitting lefty has the Birdballers primed for an unprecedented run as Clemson looms on Friday in the team's second game of pod play.
"You can see Joe's confidence continue to grow [on every at-bat]," said head coach Mike Gambino prior to Tuesday's game. "He's able to lock in on a plan and not deviate from it. On the second home run he hit [at Fenway], he chased a below-the-belt slider and then regrouped, went back, and hit a ball out. So his ability to regroup and go back to his plan, to move onto the next pitch and make adjustments pitch-to-pitch, then with his ability to hit baseball with tremendous authority, has always been there. But his ability to be more consistent just keeps growing."
Vetrano's exploits seemingly exploded overnight, but his continued development is forcing him into the company of elite hitters who once wore the maroon and gold. His 31 home runs - and counting - are third all-time after his bomb to right field at Fenway moved him one ahead of Steve Langone, six behind Mickey Wiswall, who stands in second with 37 behind Sean McGowan's 53 career homers in the Big East. Eighteen of those are from this season alone, which is one behind Wiswall's 2010 total for second all-time in a single year and seven behind McGowan's 1999 total of 25. That's more home runs than Tony Sanchez and Chris Shaw had during their cumulative three-year careers or during any one season, and it's the most home runs of the BBCOR era that started in 2011 when the NCAA introduced a composite bat performance based on the bat-ball coefficient of restitution.Â
It's a power BC lacked when it built a reputation for playing small ball, and while the stolen bases, bunting, and hit-and-runs still exist in the team's order and arsenal, Vetrano's presence added a flavor that's driven by Gambino's emphasis on fluid player development. He was originally a two-way prospect that was used as a left-handed pitcher during his first two seasons, but a sophomore year breakout doubled his batting average from a struggling freshman season to .308 last year. He still struck out 58 times, but the power explosion resulted in a .572 slugging percentage and an improvement to a .386 on-base percentage even though his walk numbers stayed down under 30 base-on-balls.
"I started to see a lot more curveballs," Vetrano laughed, "and that's not always fun, but I could definitely see a switch from pitchers that made them more cautious when there's a base open, things like that, but I try not to think about it. I just [started trying] to go up there and see a good pitch and put a swing on it."
Finding his pitch is now why he's one of the most feared hitters in the ACC. The postseason award season named him to the conference's Third Team for the regular season, and his four-RBI game against Virginia Tech moved him to within striking distance of the league's top-10. Already one of the league leaders in home runs, he didn't necessarily post the numbers of North Carolina's Mac Horvath or Virginia's Jake Gelof, but his average maintained its bearings at .310 while his slugging and on-base percentage numbers increased with his walk numbers.Â
He stepped away from pitching altogether despite making 21 appearances over his first two years, including 18 during his freshman season, and added focus on hitting as more teams adjusted to the film he produced. More defenses started shifting, which is still legal at the college level, and he saw a four-outfielder alignment earlier in the year to combat his percentages that saw half of his balls in play head towards right-center and right field. Infields largely plunked a defender behind the second base bag, but even leaving the left side of the diamond completely open drew a patient approach where Vetrano began offering opposite field hits if his bat speed guessed wrong on the velocity of a pitch.
"I can think that, okay, there's a whole opposite side," Vetrano said, "so if I'm late, I'll go that way. Or if I hit it hard enough, hopefully it'll squeak by [the strong shift side]. I think I do a little bit of both."
The result is now a centerpiece for the offensive explosion in the middle of BC's order. Vetrano's home runs against Notre Dame carried an exit velocity of over 100 miles per hour, and his near-homer smash against Virginia Tech continued a burst of energy that is hard to quantify. He's connecting at every angle, and as a result, he's considered one of the 10 best first basemen in college baseball by a plethora of experts who consistently rank him as an underrated and intriguing prospect in this year's MLB Draft, where left-handed power hitting is always properly evaluated and desired.
"It's really hard to put defense on the other side of the fence," Gambino joked, "because he keeps putting the ball there. But the thing is, he's a guy that you are going to put into a pull shift, though it's a little hard to completely sell out because he can hit the ball on the ground the other way. We've been getting guys on base, and that's the other thing because it's better to have runners on first and second or second and third because pitchers won't [pitch to him] if there's a base open."
Sixth-seeded BC plays third-seeded Clemson on Friday at 11 a.m. from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, N.C. The game is set for an ACC Network broadcast with the winner advancing to Saturday's semifinal round. Online broadcast is also available through ESPN's streaming platform via the Internet and mobile apps.
But to that fan walking towards the Green Line's escalators, the sound emanating from Fenway must have sounded, well…weird. It was a familiar song from an older era, and the voice was unmistakable. It was one of the most popular songs of all-time, but there was no way - no way - it was playing at Fenway Park. That would have been sacrilege, though the lyrics left no mistake about which song blared out over the Boston night:
It's up to you, New York. New Yorrrrrrk.
Sinatra. The theme of the hated New York Yankees. At Fenway Park. Whoever had the bold impudence to do that must have really had some nerve.
Well, to be fair, that fan might not have known that it was a Boston College baseball game and the hitter playing that song grew up emulating Derek Jeter. He was a New Yorker and a Yankee fan, but those cheers, the ones feeling like Rafael Devers went yard against some hapless American League pitcher, were for him. He had already blasted a homer in the front end of the Eagles' doubleheader, and after hitting a second dinger to the deepest part of centerfield, Joe Vetrano had just crushed a second Fenway knock.
He was thriving at the plate, and after driving in four runs on Tuesday as part of BC's first game of the ACC Tournament, the unmistakable surge provided by the power-hitting lefty has the Birdballers primed for an unprecedented run as Clemson looms on Friday in the team's second game of pod play.
"You can see Joe's confidence continue to grow [on every at-bat]," said head coach Mike Gambino prior to Tuesday's game. "He's able to lock in on a plan and not deviate from it. On the second home run he hit [at Fenway], he chased a below-the-belt slider and then regrouped, went back, and hit a ball out. So his ability to regroup and go back to his plan, to move onto the next pitch and make adjustments pitch-to-pitch, then with his ability to hit baseball with tremendous authority, has always been there. But his ability to be more consistent just keeps growing."
Vetrano's exploits seemingly exploded overnight, but his continued development is forcing him into the company of elite hitters who once wore the maroon and gold. His 31 home runs - and counting - are third all-time after his bomb to right field at Fenway moved him one ahead of Steve Langone, six behind Mickey Wiswall, who stands in second with 37 behind Sean McGowan's 53 career homers in the Big East. Eighteen of those are from this season alone, which is one behind Wiswall's 2010 total for second all-time in a single year and seven behind McGowan's 1999 total of 25. That's more home runs than Tony Sanchez and Chris Shaw had during their cumulative three-year careers or during any one season, and it's the most home runs of the BBCOR era that started in 2011 when the NCAA introduced a composite bat performance based on the bat-ball coefficient of restitution.Â
It's a power BC lacked when it built a reputation for playing small ball, and while the stolen bases, bunting, and hit-and-runs still exist in the team's order and arsenal, Vetrano's presence added a flavor that's driven by Gambino's emphasis on fluid player development. He was originally a two-way prospect that was used as a left-handed pitcher during his first two seasons, but a sophomore year breakout doubled his batting average from a struggling freshman season to .308 last year. He still struck out 58 times, but the power explosion resulted in a .572 slugging percentage and an improvement to a .386 on-base percentage even though his walk numbers stayed down under 30 base-on-balls.
"I started to see a lot more curveballs," Vetrano laughed, "and that's not always fun, but I could definitely see a switch from pitchers that made them more cautious when there's a base open, things like that, but I try not to think about it. I just [started trying] to go up there and see a good pitch and put a swing on it."
Finding his pitch is now why he's one of the most feared hitters in the ACC. The postseason award season named him to the conference's Third Team for the regular season, and his four-RBI game against Virginia Tech moved him to within striking distance of the league's top-10. Already one of the league leaders in home runs, he didn't necessarily post the numbers of North Carolina's Mac Horvath or Virginia's Jake Gelof, but his average maintained its bearings at .310 while his slugging and on-base percentage numbers increased with his walk numbers.Â
He stepped away from pitching altogether despite making 21 appearances over his first two years, including 18 during his freshman season, and added focus on hitting as more teams adjusted to the film he produced. More defenses started shifting, which is still legal at the college level, and he saw a four-outfielder alignment earlier in the year to combat his percentages that saw half of his balls in play head towards right-center and right field. Infields largely plunked a defender behind the second base bag, but even leaving the left side of the diamond completely open drew a patient approach where Vetrano began offering opposite field hits if his bat speed guessed wrong on the velocity of a pitch.
"I can think that, okay, there's a whole opposite side," Vetrano said, "so if I'm late, I'll go that way. Or if I hit it hard enough, hopefully it'll squeak by [the strong shift side]. I think I do a little bit of both."
The result is now a centerpiece for the offensive explosion in the middle of BC's order. Vetrano's home runs against Notre Dame carried an exit velocity of over 100 miles per hour, and his near-homer smash against Virginia Tech continued a burst of energy that is hard to quantify. He's connecting at every angle, and as a result, he's considered one of the 10 best first basemen in college baseball by a plethora of experts who consistently rank him as an underrated and intriguing prospect in this year's MLB Draft, where left-handed power hitting is always properly evaluated and desired.
"It's really hard to put defense on the other side of the fence," Gambino joked, "because he keeps putting the ball there. But the thing is, he's a guy that you are going to put into a pull shift, though it's a little hard to completely sell out because he can hit the ball on the ground the other way. We've been getting guys on base, and that's the other thing because it's better to have runners on first and second or second and third because pitchers won't [pitch to him] if there's a base open."
Sixth-seeded BC plays third-seeded Clemson on Friday at 11 a.m. from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, N.C. The game is set for an ACC Network broadcast with the winner advancing to Saturday's semifinal round. Online broadcast is also available through ESPN's streaming platform via the Internet and mobile apps.
Players Mentioned
LHP/1B
/ BaseballWelles Crowther- The Man in the Red Bandanna
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