Stefanoni Deals in UConn Win Over Louisville

Image credit: UConn RHP Enzo Stefanoni (Photo courtesy of UConn)

TAMPA — Connecticut’s Enzo Stefanoni hasn’t pitched in an official game since March 8, 2020, when he was at Harvard pitching in a game against Stetson as part of the last weekend before the college baseball season shut down for good. 

But you’d have no idea he was coming off of that kind of layoff with the way he pitched for the Huskies in a 9-2 win over Louisville on Sunday, which pushed the team to a 2-1 showing over the weekend in Tampa. 

The righthander, who bounces around the mound with infectious energy, threw 6.2 innings, giving up seven hits and no walks with eight strikeouts. 

“I was pretty nervous this weekend. I had the jitters, but as soon as I got back on the field, it’s somewhere I’ve been a million times, even if not so much in the last year,” Stefanoni said. “I was excited to be able to represent my state, represent Connecticut, just get back on the mound again. It’s been a long time.”

More generally, he just looked in control from the very first pitch of the game, even though he wasn’t perfect. He dealt with a runner in scoring position in four of the six innings he completed, and he always found his way out of trouble. 

It helped that he was pounding the strike zone—69 of his 96 pitches went for strikes—and he added and subtracted velocity masterfully, keeping Louisville hitters guessing time and again. It was easy to lose count of the offspeed pitches the Cardinals were early on and swung through or rolled over and the fastballs they were tardy on later in some of those same at-bats. 

That kind of velocity modulation is a result of his working with five distinct pitches. He has a fastball and changeup, plus three different breaking balls, a slider, a firm curveball and a slow curveball, all of which he can land for strikes. In fact, the UConn coaching staff has had to work with him to pitch out of the zone a bit more just for variety’s sake and to better build out at-bats. 

And as a result of his command, not only can UConn feel confident in doing things like pitching out more often because they don’t fear Stefanoni getting behind in counts, it also allows pitching coach Joshua MacDonald to call pitches in a more specific way. 

“We saw a big key today, strangely enough, is being able to use electric devices between coach MacDonald and our catcher,” UConn coach Jim Penders said. “He was really narrating. It was really impressive to kind of be a witness to it, (for him) to say ‘I need this three taps off the plate. I need this one way off, I need you to set up here,’ and Enzo’s able to do that.”

Through it all, Stefanoni’s body language was excellent. His energy never sagged, he continued to work with pace even with runners on, and he exuded confidence.

“He’s wide-eyed in a good way,” Penders said. “He’s not wide-eyed overwhelmed. He’s wide-eyed for what’s next.”

That’s not really something Stefanoni tries to project or has to practice. It’s just kind of the way he does business. 

“It sort of just happens,” Stefanoni said. “I don’t really try to be anyone other than who I am. I try to have fun. I love baseball, and I really didn’t think I’d ever play it again, so that joy and enthusiasm is really just me being me.”

To his point, Sunday’s performance was a nice payoff for a player who spent much of the last two years unsure of what his baseball future would be, or if he even had a future in baseball anymore. 

With Harvard not able to play last year, he was right to wonder, but he kept working, just in case. 

“There was definitely a point in time where I felt like I was leaning toward life taking me away from baseball,” he said. “I didn’t think I would get that chance, but coach Penders and Coach Mac gave me the opportunity and I sort of flipped the switch again to get back into playing baseball. I’m grateful for Harvard. We didn’t play last spring, but we trained and we trained pretty hard. And that got me in a position to play summer ball and then summer ball got me in a position to compete here.”

One start does not a season make, but with Stefanoni doing what he did on Sunday, it’s easy to feel good about what UConn has in its weekend rotation right now, and that’s impressive when you consider that this was expected to be a pitching staff built around lefthander Reggie Crawford, who is out for the season. 

On Friday against South Florida, righthander Austin Peterson struck out 13 and walked one in 5.2 innings. Righthander Pat Gallagher struggled on Saturday against Charlotte, but as a steady starter throughout all of 2021, there’s every reason to believe he’ll bounce back moving forward. 

Of course, there are things the Huskies still have to clean up. For one, It didn’t field the ball particularly well in its first time on grass and dirt since last season, but if this is their starting point, it says a lot about how dangerous this club could be once the business end of this season rolls around.