From Reliever to Starter: Maxx Yehl Ready for Breakout Season After Tommy John Surgery

The West Virginia University baseball program will open the season on the road at Georgia Southern for a three-game series this weekend.

Head coach Steve Sabins announced Chansen Cole the opening day start and shortly after, revealed redshirt junior Maxx Yehl will start game two.

“He’s probably one of the bigger sleepers in the country because last year he was recovering from Tommy John (surgery),” Sabins said.

The six-foot-six southpaw spent his first two seasons in the Mountaineer uniform coming out of the bullpen. As a true freshman, he made 17 appearances, captured a win, and ended the season with a 3.54 ERA and 19 strikeouts in 28.0 relief innings. The following season, he had a pair of wins and two saves with 32 Ks in 29.1 innings of work, leading the team with 24 appearances. His work garnered the attention of MLB scouts.

“His sophomore year he really showed some glimpses of dominance and then going into his junior year before Tommy John, he was throwing the ball really well, so well that scouts were really excited about him. So, he turned down significant draft money this summer to come back to West Virginia.”

He’s been great,” Sabins continued. “He’s a leader, he’s matured, he’s ready to roll…So, he’s going from a limited relief roll to a Saturday starter - that kind of just shows you how much I believe in him and how much he’s grown to be there. He hasn’t pitched a ton and is coming off injury, so we’ll see how long the start can be or what he can do. But he’s healthy, he’s horse. He’s been up to 96 (MPH) this spring. So, the stuff is real and he’s going to have to settle into the starting role and see kind of what it takes to win.”

Sabins and his staff have been rotating potential weekend starters leading up to the season, and two of the expected workhorses, will not be going deep into pitch counts at the beginning of the season.

“Early in the season, pitch counts are usually about 75 tops -we’ve built up to that. No one’s thrown that much yet,” Sabins stated. “They’re at 60 to 75 pitches this last weekend. It ends up needing being a lot of piggy back starts, meaning that someone could start and go three or four innings and then you bring in another somebody that’s already been built up in a similar role and so early in the season, you’re putting guys in those starting roles, but it doesn’t mean week three, week four, week five might look a lot different, it’s just who did you build up to get the largest workload on these weekends coming up.”

The Mountaineers and Eagles open the three-game series on Friday with the first pitch set for 6:30 p.m. EST. Game two is scheduled for Saturday at two, and the series finale is Sunday at 11:30 a.m. All the action will stream on ESPN+.

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