He needed to calm himself down.
Senior pitcher Caleb Baragar was 13 pitches into his start Saturday against Purdue, and he was still facing the lead off batter Cody Strong.
So Baragar stepped off the back of the mound, took a breath and struck Strong out two pitches later. After he retired Strong, he retired the next 11 Boilermakers en route to pitching 5.1 innings and allowing two runs in a no-decision.
This is a new routine for Baragar. He needed a way to help himself stay calm and focused during his starts. Oftentimes last season, Baragar would be pitching well before losing focus and let the game get away from him.
So this offseason he sat down with pitching coach Kyle Bunn and they came up with a simple plan: take a couple seconds to breathe.
“I kind of worked this offseason with Coach Bunn to try and find something that worked, and that seemed to work in bullpens,” Baragar said. “If I missed a pitch, I would step off, take a breath, get ready and come back more focused.”
After he did this against Strong to start Saturday’s game, Baragar stepped off the mound to breathe five more times in the first three innings.
It’s not too noticeable when Baragar steps off the mound. After he makes what he deems a string of bad pitches or pitches he felt he could have executed better, he’ll step off. Really, he hops off the mound.
He’ll catch the ball from freshman catcher Ryan Fineman and essentially skip backwards off the mound. Once there, he looks down and takes a quick, deep breath before getting back on the mound. That’s all it takes.
Against the second batter of the second inning, Baragar fell behind 2-0. Then he performed his calming routine before firing three strikes past Brett Carlson for one of his seven strikeouts.
He did it again after falling behind 3-1 to the next batter, James Jewell. He ended up striking him out, too. He did it to each of the three batters he faced in the third inning, resulting in his fifth and sixth strikeouts of the game and a weak pop out to senior Brian Wilhite at shortstop.
The last time, before the pop out, was the most pronounced. Instead of hopping off the back of the mound for a quick breath, Baragar instead stepped back and to the side and stood there for a few seconds.
Still looking down, he took multiple breaths before jamming Harry Shipley with an inside fastball for the final out of the inning.
This all lowered his ERA to 1.51, by far the lowest of IU’s three senior starters. He doesn’t have much to show for it with a record of 2-1 this season after he picked up another no-decision Saturday.
But that doesn’t concern Baragar. IU has still won the last six games he’s started on the mound. And with how well he’s learned to come back this season, picking up some more wins shouldn’t be a problem.
“Last year, I just couldn’t do that,” Baragar said. “I don’t know. I couldn’t ever figure out how to get back after falling behind.”
