Iowa Stint Makes Thrower a Pitcher

Jason Secoda had to do something.

A junior pitcher at Cal State Los Angeles, Secoda’s freshman year had too little action (28 innings pitched). His sophomore year had too much (7.71 earned-run average).

A first-baseman in high school, he knew he needed some quality work to get experience. The solution: summer ball. After a few calls by his coaches, he found himself in Iowa in July and August playing in the amateur Jayhawk League.

What was it like?

There were 15-hour bus rides to fields carved into the middle of auto-racing tracks and a schedule that included one day off in two months. Of course, there were also humidity and large insects.

Not exactly a field of dreams, but it was worth it.

Secoda became a pitcher instead of a thrower. With good speed on his fastball and split-fingered fastball, he was his summer team’s closer.

“I learned to throw a split-fingered fastball in high school, but I had only pitched in, like, three games,” he said. “So since I never really threw the curve that well, it became my ‘out’ pitch.”

And it may be his ticket into the minor leagues.

“It is kind of funny, I never considered myself a baseball player when I was in high school,” he said. “I just played it for fun. My dad is a high school football coach, so it seems kind of weird coming from a football family. But I definitely am a baseball player now.”

He is the Cal State L.A. staff’s leader.

“You know, he has a major league split,” his coach, John Herbold, said. “The mark of a professional, to me, is that a pitcher have more strikeouts than innings pitched and less hits than innings pitched. He’s got both of those.”

Secoda has struck out 76 batters and allowed 62 hits in 74 innings. He has pitched two two-hitters, and opposing hitters have a .225 average.

“I try to take my closer mentality into starting.” he said. “Obviously, I want to get every batter out, but I’m still aggressive like a closer and maybe not as much as a finesse pitcher as a starter should be.”

He entered the spring break with a 5-2 record and a 2.82 ERA. But two losses last week bumped his ERA up a full point, which Secoda shrugs off as an aberration.

“Here he has 17 freshmen and sophomores on the team and so not everything is going to go right,” Herbold said. “The split is hard to hit and hard to catch too. If he was at USC--and he could definitely play there--he would be something like 15-2.”

Still, Secoda is looking forward to going back to being a closer. He likes pitching more than every fifth day, and when the game is on the line. That could come this summer, when he expects to be drafted and sign a professional contract.

When he does, he will know what he is getting into. He is on pace to graduate in 3 1/2 years with a degree in economics. His 3.6 grade point average has also made him a candidate for Academic All-American honors.

Notes

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps will play host to the first NCAA tournament for a national championship in women’s water polo May 5-7. . . Cal Poly Pomona (26-23) faced Cal State Dominguez Hills (20-22) five times last week and won every game to give itself an outside shot at making the NCAA Division II baseball playoffs. . . Westmont’s baseball team tied the NAIA record for hits in a game (31), when it beat Whittier, 31-9, last Tuesday.