Maxx Yehl is Dominating in the Sunday Role, Giving WVU a Series-Altering Advantage

Typically, in college baseball, your most dominant pitcher is the guy you throw out there on Friday for the first game of a three-game series. For West Virginia, that guy, Maxx Yehl, has been their Sunday starter, and it's a sneaky good advantage to have.

Dawson Montesa has the stuff and has pitched well enough to be a Friday starter, and Chansen Cole is a rock-solid No. 2, giving some quality innings in the middle game. Having Yehl, one of the nation's best pitchers, in the Sunday spot is what will allow the Mountaineers to win more series in the Big 12 and perhaps sweep more teams in their quest to defend their conference title.

If you win game one, you have two chances to win the series with your best pitcher yet to toe the rubber. He can also help save you from being swept if WVU were to ever drop the first two games of a series as well. By the time that third game comes around, most teams' bullpens are taxed, and if you can get to the pen early, then the advantage is clearly in your favor, especially when your ace is on the mound.

I don't want to speak for head coach Steve Sabins, but I don't believe this was the strategy; it just ended up working out this way. Yehl missed all of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery, so there was some uncertainty as to how well he would pitch, at least at the start of the season, as he got his feet back under him, hence the move to make him the Sunday guy. All he's done is turn into a superstar.

Entering this week, the 6-foot-6 redshirt junior ranks eighth nationally in ERA with a ridiculous 0.84 mark. Of those who have pitched at least thirty innings, he ranks fourth. When it comes to other statistics, like strikeouts, the number is a little skewed. He ranks 36th with 44, but that total could be much higher if his pitch count had been built up at the start of the season. His first two starts were just two and four innings long, and yet he still managed to punch out eight batters.

Yehl has been elite in his last three outings, striking out 32, walking five, and giving up just two runs on 13 hits. It feels like he's getting better with each start and has somewhat of a Justin Verlander vibe to him, where he just gets stronger and stronger the deeper he goes into a game.

The Mountaineers have developed a bunch of pro pitchers over the last decade or so, and it looks like Yehl is well on his way to joining that club in the near future, potentially as a first-round draft pick.