Sabins Reveals WVU's Starting Pitchers for Games 1 & 2 of Morgantown Regional

As we predicted earlier this week, it will be sophomore Chansen Cole who will toe the rubber on Friday evening for the West Virginia Mountaineers as they begin play in the Morgantown Regional against No. 4 seed Binghamton.

WVU head coach Steve Sabins told reporters that Cole would get the ball on Friday and that Big 12 Pitcher of the Year Maxx Yehl will start on Saturday against Wake Forest/Kentucky.

“First and foremost, you want to respect every opponent that you play," Sabins said when asked if the approach to the rotation is different entering the tournament. "You want to absolutely make sure that you’re putting your team in the best position to win every game because beating Binghamton is the only thing that matters. That’s the focus. Find a way to win game one.

"Maxx Yehl has bounced around, Sabins continued. "He actually got moved up a day to pitch in that conference tournament, and then we moved him back to game two this week. He’s going to pitch the second game. For him, it’s been about strategically managing the rest and the workload throughout this season. So we thought, leading into this postseason run, we really wanted to give Maxx a little more time. In my viewpoint, there’s a lot of data out there about pitching your ace versus pitching off and those kinds of things, but we’re in a little bit of a unique situation because to say that Chansen isn’t an ace wouldn’t probably be fair. I think he was the number two or number three pitcher in the entire Big 12 out of 14 teams in our league. But when you’re looking, you basically go through each of those teams and making sure you’re not making some egregious matchup error.”

Why the flip of the two makes sense

As Sabins mentioned, Yehl pitched on six days' rest last week, so this is a good opportunity to even things out and give him eight days in between starts this time around. If the Mountaineers win the regional, there's a chance they could have Yehl start next Friday in game one of the super regional, and if that's the case, he would have been pitching on short weeks consecutively, which is not smart for a guy who had Tommy John surgery last year and missed a week earlier this season after feeling some discomfort.

Secondly, with all due respect to Binghamton, they are not going to barrel up the ball very much. They are slugging .410 as a team and have hit just 48 homers. Not to mention, they are only hitting .269 as a team. Throwing a sinkerballer/changeup guy like Cole should play well against a team that doesn't drive the ball into the gap very often.

Kentucky has a similar pop to West Virginia's offense, but Wake Forest can really rake. They are slugging .506 as a team and have hit 90 dingers on the season. Yehl has allowed just five long balls compared to Cole's 10, so Sabins likes the chances of the ball staying in the yard a little bit better with the lefty on the mound. Also, only six doubles have been hit by Yehl, while Cole has allowed 12. All the way around, the switch makes a ton of sense.

As for game three, Sabins did not announce any plans, but I think it would be safe to assume that Ian Korn would be in the conversation to get the nod, even if he makes an appearance in relief.

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