Laguna Hills’ Plemel on Upswing Again for Stanford

There was no hesitation when Stanford Coach Mark Marquess was asked whom he would send against Cal State Fullerton today in the College World Series.

It will be Lee Plemel.

There are coaches who will hem and haw about who will pitch, but Marquess’ move was sure.

In part, it is because of the tight pitching rotation a tournament such as the Series demands. But largely, it was a sign of the current status of Plemel’s up-and-down season: It is up again.

Plemel, who played at Laguna Hills High School, has won five straight games, including three complete-game performances--one of them a 10-3 victory over Fresno State in Stanford’s opening game of the Series.

“That one felt great,” said Plemel, who won one World Series game for Stanford last season, when the Cardinal won the national championship.

Against Fresno State on Saturday, Plemel pitched well, even though the slider he uses wasn’t working. It didn’t matter. His fastball and curve were on, and they were plenty. He scattered nine hits and won easily.

With four days’ rest, he is ready to go again and is pleased to be doing it without the memory of a bad last outing.

“It’s really great not to have to worry about the last time you pitched,” he said. “If you do, you come out wondering if you’ll have better stuff. The way I feel now, I feel like I can come out confident that I can do well, rather than worry about overcoming the last time.”

There was a time this season when it seemed that Plemel was always worried about the last time.

In the middle of the season, he lost five of six games at one point. Plemel, a right-handed senior with a national championship ring on his finger, found himself with a 5-6 record.

His 11-8 record doesn’t tell the story of this season. He got off to a 4-1 start.

Then he had a strange outing against UCLA. He struck out 15, easily a career high, and an amazing number for a pitcher who works for groundouts more than strikeouts.

But in the ninth inning, he gave up a home run, a single, and then a two-run homer that sent the game into extra innings. Stanford ended up losing in 10 innings, and Plemel, who had been relieved, ended up with a 15-strikeout no-decision.

All of this before he returned to form late in the season, for no clear reason other than that he tends to pitch well toward the end of the schedule.

“I can’t really say what it was,” he said, trying to explain the time in which he struggled. “Some outings, I didn’t feel right and I didn’t have good stuff and got hit. But against Arizona State in one game, I felt good and they hit everything I sent up there.”

It made no sense.

“There came a point when I started getting a lot of losses, and I just had to look at it like a new season,” Plemel, who was drafted by the Cardinals in baseball’s amateur draft, said.

Soon enough, things turned around.

In Fullerton, he will face a school that is far nearer his home than his own school.

He considered attending Fullerton, although never very seriously, and he vaguely knows a few Titan players.

“Earlier in my career, there would have been more emotion. But now I’ve been in Northern California so long, and (Fullerton) is not in our league. Now it seems they’re like a team that’s not in our area.”

He does recall that in an outing against the Titans last year and one early this year, he got hit fairly hard.

“I haven’t had good success with them,” he said.

When he pitched against Fullerton in February, the Titans scored 6 runs on 11 hits and took a 6-5 victory.

“I’m not really concerned about how I pitched last time,” Plemel said. “It’s sort of an advantage that they haven’t seen me when I pitched really well.”