Finally, Andrew Abbott gets to make his NCAA Tournament debut

By Jerry Ratcliffe

If anyone thinks Andrew Abbott is going to be feeling a ton of pressure in his first NCAA tournament pitching assignment against South Carolina on Friday, think again.

Abbott enters the game as one of the nation’s elite pitchers. The Virginia lefty has won his last six starts and he’s second nationally in strikeouts with 136. He hasn’t allowed an earned run in his last 30.1 innings pitched.

Pressure, smeshure. This dude’s riding a wave of confidence unmatched by a Cavalier hurler in years.

Virginia coach realizes there will be pressure on his team overall because none of his guys have ever appeared in an NCAA Tournament and they’re playing a strong South Carolina team on the Gamecocks’ home field. UVA hasn’t been to an NCAA regional since 2017.

Still, O’Connor believes because his team has been playing under pressure just to qualify for postseason for more than a month, that pressure is somewhat second nature to them.

And, Abbott?

“[Abbott] has especially handled [pressure] well,” O’Connor said of his ace. “Think about what this guy did. I mean he was disappointed what happened in the draft last year. He clearly could have signed.”

Major League teams passed over Abbott the first five rounds, with clubs calling him and promising to draft him in later rounds if he would agree to sign.

“It wasn’t the right time for him, so he took a chance on coming back here,” O’Connor said. “Boy, has he responded, and has he handled the pressure. There’s a lot of pressure to bypass the opportunity to sign and come back, but also to perform at the level that he has in a role as a starting pitcher.”

Abbott was previously a bullpen hurdler for UVA and a closer last season.

“At this time of year, you welcome pressure. This is what you want,” O’Connor said. “This is where winners emerge. If you win the season continues and if you don’t, it doesn’t. You really find out what people are made of this time of year and I have no doubt that Andrew will be at his best.”

In the process, Abbott has added a change-up to his repertoire, which has made him even more lethal. Just ask the 136 batters he has fanned this season, tying some in knots.

When he returned to UVA he sat down with the coaching staff and decided to add the third pitch. The first two months of the fall practice, he was experimenting with grips and getting a feel for which one was most comfortable in his hand.

Pitching coach Drew Dickinson told Abbott that the more he would throw the change-up, the more he would trust the pitch and the rest is history.

“It’s been a work in progress, honestly,” Abbott said. “Working on an end game is the only way it’s going to get better. It wasn’t really my intention to throw it at 80 to 87 [mph], but the thing for me was to have motion and throw hitters off my fastball regardless of the count.”

Abbott believes that the pitch has come a long way and that it will get even better as time goes by.

He will carry that confidence to the mound against South Carolina in Friday’s noon start (see related story).

“It feels great to be back in [the NCAAs],” Abbott said, speaking for his teammates. “I know that Oaks (O’Connor’s nickname) has been in the regionals a lot in his career, and unfortunately I was part of the teams that weren’t in the postseason. This is a big step for me right now, just to finally return UVA baseball back to where it is and so [getting the start] means a lot.”

The pressure? What pressure?

“It’s just another game to me because you can’t compound the pressure,” Abbott said. “I mean it’s there already, a lot of pressure in the postseason, so there’s no real reason to add anything that you don’t need to … so it’s just another game. Go out, do the same routine, same  work and follow those through. If you play good you can live with the results, so that’s what we’re trying to do.”

The southpaw is well aware of South Carolina’s power, something he and the coaches have studied ahead of time.

“I know some of their hitters personally,” he said. “We’ll go with the plan of attack. It’s more of the fact of just being efficient in executing pitches. It doesn’t really matter which team I’m facing, whether it’s a home run team or an average team that gets on base a lot. It’s mainly controlling what I can control and executing my pitches and giving my team the best shot to win.”