This is a follow-up article to my original feature article on T.J. Zeuch that I did earlier in the year. You can read the first article here.
Pittsburgh right-hander T.J. Zeuch began the 2016 college baseball season by sitting out the first four weeks in order to rest his arm and make sure it was fresh for conference play.
With the college baseball regular season over, Zeuch feels like delaying his season debut, helped him down the stretch to be more effective.
“I think there have been some benefits to sitting out the beginning of the year,” Zeuch said. “My arm is more fresh than some of the other guys who have 20 to 30 more innings than me during the course of the year.”
The 6-foot-7, 225-pound righty went 6-1 with a 3.10 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 69 2/3 innings pitched during the 2016 season.
“The key is just trying to execute pitches,” Zeuch said. “Getting ahead of guys and throwing a lot of strikes. I’m not necessarily trying to strike guys out because once you try to do that you won’t strike anyone out. I’m just hitting my spots and keeping the ball down. When you do that you will continue to see yourself be successful.”
With the Pitt Panthers season ending on May 20, Zeuch can now focus his attention to the MLB First-Year Player Draft, something he didn’t think about during the season. Zeuch is a rising prospect and is projected to be a first or second round pick in the draft.
“I just try to embrace the draft,” Zeuch said. “But, at the same time I also had to ignore it because I can’t think about the draft during the season. When I think about that or get distracted like that, I start to go backwards. When I start trying to impress people, I’m going to do the opposite and get worse.”
Find more MLB Draft coverage here.
Over the last few months I’ve interviewed 31 of the top MLB Draft prospects. Read my profiles on these draft prospects here.
