Baseball Preview: Pioneers Look to Rely on Experience this Season

With the sun shining down, and nary a cloud in the crisp sky, it should be a perfect spring day for America’s favorite pastime.

Should be, but Mother Nature still has a say in this, and she has brought hand-numbing wind gusts and sub-45 degree temperatures on this day.

Nevertheless, it is baseball season, and New Providence ace Doug Pastore is on the hill, ready to throw the first pitch of the week that will begin this season’s journey.

The Pioneers’ hopes rest on the shoulders of the senior hurler this season, particularly the right one, which he uses to uncork a high fastball for a ball to kick off one of the final spring scrimmages of this preseason. 

The games begin counting on Friday, given that Mother Nature complies, of course; foul weather has already cost the Pioneers several scrimmages this spring, and Pastore is still trying to get his arm stretched out for the season because of that.

As the game progresses, Pastore has trouble locating his fastball, something Chris Brodeur, the Pioneers’ fourth-year coach, says the senior needs to do more consistently this season in order to elevate his game.

“We’ve got to make sure he’s hitting his spots and remains a pitcher, pitches with his mind and not just his body,” Brodeur says.  “But he’s worked hard to get where he is, so it’s never a question of his work ethic, he’s just got to remain focused and do what he needs to do.”

Brodeur says Pastore spent a lot of time this offseason working on his changeup and other off-speed pitches.

“His fastball’s pretty good, and I think his off-speed stuff, as long as he can locate it, he’ll be alright,” Brodeur says.

The weather has made it so that this is only the second time this preseason that New Providence is facing live pitching, and it shows.  The Pioneers’ senior-laden lineup struggles mightily to put the ball in play, and it results in New Providence getting one-hit on the day.

Brodeur says he isn’t worried about that though, chalking the poor offensive performance up to the cold weather.

“I think we’ll get to hit, I think we’ll definitely get to hit,” he says.  “The bats are always a little slow in March, we have trouble here getting started early enough, and that’s always been the case.  I never worry about it, the bats will come around, we’ll be hitting the ball as soon as it warms up.”

Seniors Stephen Zimmerman and Joe Meyers will set the table at the top of the order, and Brodeur says the Pioneers will rely on Pastore and sophomore Michael Marchesano to drive them in.

Marchesano, a three-sport athlete at New Providence, will play shortstop and will slot in as the second starter behind Pastore.  Brodeur said Marchesano brings a steadiness to everything that he does, and he does a lot.

“One of the things we always say is, ‘you don’t worry about him, you don’t worry about [Marchesano], he’s going to be okay, he’s a competitor, he’s a three-sport athlete, he does just about everything,'” Brodeur says.

The coach removes Pastore after three innings of work and four runs allowed.  Zimmerman, his battery mate behind the plate, says that all Pastore has to do to succeed this season is to “stay calm.”

“I think he’ll get his stuff together like the rest of us, and after a few more scrimmages, everything will be smooth sailing,” Zimmerman says.

In the bottom of the third, a Pioneers player is picked off, something Brodeur says is “unacceptable” because of how much the Pioneers work on base running.

“Heads up baseball, we’ve got to be able to make sure that our heads in the game all the time,” he says.

Brodeur will have the benefit of having a very experienced team, as the Pioneers will have 11 seniors, which the coach expects to play a key role.  The team lost outfielders John Quinn, who had a .553 average with 38 RBI, and Eddie Morgan, who had a .388 average, to graduation. But aside from those two, the Pioneers will return all of the impact players from a team that only went 11-13, but made it to the state sectional semifinal. 

If Pastore and Marchesano can put everything together on the hill, and the offense heats up at the same rate the weather does, Brodeur says the Pioneers can go even further this season.

“I think realistically speaking, if we get the performance that we can get, we should be able to fight for that spot in the states, [and] we should be fighting for the conference championship,” he says.

The quest starts on Friday at Roselle Park at 4 p.m., if the weather holds out. Given that the weather has been the Pioneers’ toughest opponent in the preseason, Brodeur and his squad will be happy just to be out on the diamond on a consistent basis.