Dean Cruises, Leads Maryland Over Campbell

Image credit: Maryland RHP Nick Dean (Photo courtesy of Maryland)

BUIES CREEK, N.C. — When Maryland’s Nick Dean is at his best, he’s about as efficient as they come, and on Friday in a 4-0 Terrapins win over Campbell, he was clearly at something close to his best. 

The righthander threw seven innings, giving up three hits and one walk with seven strikeouts. Just twice did Campbell get a runner in scoring position—once on a one-out double in the first off the bat of center fielder Dalen Thompson and again in the sixth when star shortstop Zach Neto walked and then made it to second with two outs on a stolen base—and a runner never made it as far as third. Campbell also never had more than one runner on base at a given time while he was in the game. And he did it all on just 87 pitches, 64 of which were strikes. 

“You guys are kind of getting to see what we’ve seen for three years,” Maryland coach Rob Vaughn said. “I think his biggest gift outside of his changeup, which is pretty dang good, is just (that) the dude’s heartbeat never gets high. Whether he has the stuff or not, whether it’s going good, whether it’s not, that guy’s heart rate never gets elevated.”

Dean has an impressive four-pitch repertoire that has improved in his time at Maryland. His sinker, which used to be a high-80s offering, has ticked up into the low 90s, and on Friday, it sat 89-92 mph from the first pitch of the evening until he was lifted. 

As far as his offspeed pitches go, his changeup, which really took off after his high school days when he moved from a traditional circle change grip to one where his thumb slides directly under the baseball, is the biggest weapon, as Vaughn alluded to. Last weekend against Baylor, nine of the 19 swings against his changeup came up empty and it induced plenty of whiffs again this time around. 

He also shows a slider that has cutter-like qualities and a traditional curveball that, at least on this night, served as a put-away pitch. As Friday’s game went on, after the Camels’ hitters had seen the sinker-changeup combination time and again, Maryland pitching coach Mike Morrison called for the curveball more and more as he realized that it had a little something extra. 

“The curveball actually had some swing and miss tonight, and usually the curveball is a little bit more of a get-me-over early-count pitch,” Vaughn said. “You had some really good hitters in two-strike counts that he got on the curveball, which is huge. You can’t practice hitting a changeup, but everybody knows how good his changeup is, and I think when you get late in the game, he’s starting to get a little bit tired, his velo is going down a little bit, to be able to use a pitch they haven’t seen a ton of is huge.”

Dean also kept an impressive pace all throughout the evening. He didn’t really mess around much between pitches, but he successfully toed the line between working quick and feeling like he was rushing. 

“The biggest thing with me is getting a clear mind before I go out there, just focusing on each pitch (one) at a time, because when you start to think about the whole inning, that’s when you start to leave some pitches in places they shouldn’t be,” Dean said. 

Dean is no stranger to this kind of game. Last season, he started nine games. He went at least six innings in each of his final six starts of the season and only once, when he threw 103 pitches in 7.2 innings against Illinois, did he throw more than 100 pitches. 

A bout with mononucleosis last season delayed Dean’s start to the 2021 season—a campaign that was already going to be a bit shorter due to the Big Ten scheduling only conference games—and he missed time late in the year due to a wrist injury, but when he was on the mound, he was a workhorse for the Terrapins, and he looks the part again this season. 

In two starts, wins against projected regional teams in Baylor and Campbell, Dean has thrown 14 innings, giving up seven hits and no runs with two walks and 17 strikeouts. That comes out to a 0.43 WHIP. 

As it turns out, Dean and the Terrapins needed just about every bit of his outing on Friday, because Campbell righthander Thomas Harrington was nearly as good, and that’s precisely what Maryland expected coming into the game. 

“I was joking with my wife earlier today,” Vaughn said. “She said ‘what are you doing?’ I said ‘I’m watching video trying to figure out how the heck we’re going to get a hit tonight.’ ”

Vaughn’s team did manage to get a hit against Harrington, but they didn’t get much more than that. The Terrapins pushed a run across in the first inning with the help of a throwing error by Campbell catcher Ty Babin and a sacrifice fly off the bat of shortstop Matt Shaw at the end of a 14-pitch at-bat. 

Immediately after that run scored, third baseman Nick Lorusso doubled for the first Maryland hit of the game. Harrington promptly retired the next batter, left fielder Bobby Zmarzlak, and then retired the next 17 batters after that, a streak that was fittingly broken by Zmarzlak with a single in the seventh. He finished after seven, having just allowed the run scored in the first. It’s a testament to how good he was that he threw 31 pitches in the first inning alone and then lasted all the way through the seventh having thrown the last six frames on just 72 pitches. 

Both pitchers threw well enough to deserve a win, but only Dean came away with one, thanks in large part to the work of fourth-year junior righthander Sean Heine. 

Freshman righthander Noah Mrotek was the first arm out of the bullpen for the Terrapins, but after he hit a batter and issued a walk to begin the eighth, he was pulled in favor of Heine, who got out of the only real jam of the game for Maryland with the help of a caught stealing at third on a swung through hit-and-run for Campbell and a pair of strikeouts. 

And after the Terrapins added three insurance runs in the top of the ninth, Heine came back out and polished off the last three outs. 

“I thought that was his game to finish out,” Vaughn said. “He deserved it and he wanted the ball. He was tremendous.”

With the win, Maryland is off to a 5-0 start for the first time since 1968 and with a win in the second game of the series, would be off to a 6-0 start for the first time ever. 

This is a team that got very hot down the stretch last season, and Vaughn is clear about pointing to Dean being in the rotation as being a catalyst for that. Now, with the righthander healthy from the start and hoping to lead the rotation from beginning to end, this Maryland team has its eyes set on a deep postseason run, and with the way things have gone so far, you can’t blame them for dreaming.