In the top of the seventh, the Terps’ Nate Haberthier stared down his man in the box. He’d retired all five batters so far, striking out two and drawing weak contact from three. Albany slugger Dan Tauken held his ground as he awaited his 0-2 pitch, then took a big whiff and came up empty.
This was Haberthier’s second swinging-strikeout of the frame and Albany’s third out, propelling the pitcher from the mound as his Terps maintained their 4-0 shutout. His competitive fire exploded as he released a primal scream directed back at a Maryland dugout full of celebrating teammates.
“When I’m throwing good like that, I just have a mentality like, ‘No one can get a hit off of me. No one’s better than me,’” he said. “Every time I get rolling like that, I’m pretty tough to stop.”
Despite recording a save, the righty’s performance likely slipped under the radar of the casual Maryland fan. He didn’t start the game; that honor was reserved for freshman wunderkind Kyle McCoy. Despite the lack of fanfare, Haberthier extended the biggest groove of his brief time in College Park, evidenced by 12 strikeouts over his last two appearances, spanning just eight innings in relief.
The catch? Nate Haberthier isn’t a closer, or even a relief pitcher. He’s a career starter in his third year of college ball.
That March 18 game marked Haberthier’s second-straight Sunday coming in after McCoy, a strategy Maryland Manager Rob Vaughn briefly utilized due to their contrasting pitch arsenals, and Haberthier floundering in his three prior starts, allowing 12 earned runs over 12.1 innings.
“That guy did not pitch bad his first three starts,” Vaughn said. “We went to him and just said, ‘hey, we think everybody fits better if we move Kyle up front.’ He had a choice to be pissy about that and be mad and kind of shut down because he’s not starting. That dude just wants to win … really unselfish out of him and really happy and proud of him, too.”
Expectations for Haberthier before the season were uncertain, after the 6-foot-5 junior posted an unremarkable 7.52 ERA over 14 starts over two years at Ohio State. His fresh start under a new program has seen him become the inning-eating Swiss Army knife the Terps needed after they lost former starter Ryan Ramsey in the MLB Draft last year, and this all started with the pitcher buying into the promise of rebirth.
“Honestly, when we saw him, he was actually really, really bad last year for Ohio State,” pitching coach Mike Morrison said. “He was throwing four-seams and sliders, and it wasn’t very good. We talked on the phone, recruiting him, about putting a sinker in his hand, and it’s been really good. It takes a lot for a kid to come here and revamp his whole arsenal and buy into what we’re doing…Nate’s done awesome with that.
“Super proud of him,” the coach continued, “because in the fall, [he] was one of the worst arms on the team because he was in between what he used to do and what he was trying to do. He’s really taken off in understanding what he needs to do with the baseball right now.”
Haberthier, likewise attracted to Maryland’s recruiting pitch, citing Morrison’s energy. “I’d call him and he’d answer the phone, and he’d be, like, screaming in my ear. I liked that.”
Maryland’s staff worked with the Ohio native to revamp his array of pitches.
“He went from kind of a four-seam guy to more of a two-seam, changeup, slider guy,” Vaughn said. “They’re swinging and missing. … When he’s ahead in counts and has hitters in swing mode, it is hard to barrel that thing up. The changeup been really good, that two-seam’s had great action and the slider’s been tight.”
Haberthier identified the two-seam fastball and changeup as his deadliest weapons. “At Ohio State, I didn’t throw a changeup, I just had a problem with cutting it. [Morrison] helped me find a grip where I could not cut it and it’d be effective. I think it’s helped me a lot.”
How have batters reacted to the new pitch? “They don’t like it,” he said. “It has a lot of movement, it’s a weird pitch.”
The pitcher’s stint as part of a lethal one-two punch alongside McCoy was thrown into jeopardy after just two dynamic outings. The highly touted freshman has continued his ascent, pitching deeper into games and leaving less room for Haberthier.
Case in point: last Sunday against UCF, when McCoy dealt his first master class, throwing eight shutout innings without walking a single batter. Haberthier’s next chance didn’t arrive until Tuesday during Maryland’s game against Georgetown, when he made his first start since March 8 against Hawaii. He wasn’t as stable as he’s been recently, allowing two earned runs over two innings. Vaughn didn’t let him pitch deep into that game, instead opting to stash him for this weekend’s series against the mighty Iowa Hawkeyes.
Unlike Maryland’s ace, Jason Savacool, the up-and-coming McCoy or even midweek specialist Logan Ott, Haberthier remains without a long-term role, as far as he knows. That isn’t a concern to him, though, since he has his eyes set only on winning.
“I’m the guy who’s gonna be able to throw a lot of innings,” he said. “I think that we have a lot of different roles here and if we can get to four guys that can be a starter and be effective for us, we can go a long way.”
