Published February 18, 2010 09:30 pm -
Harrington adjusts mound mechanics
By Tom Halliburton
The Port Arthur News
BEAUMONT -- Drudgery accompanies 30-plus years of any job, but Jim Gilligan never gets tired of New Year's Day.
Today is New Year's Day for the Texas Hall of Fame and Lamar baseball coach, as Gilligan's guys open at 6:30 against Maine's usually good Black Bears.
If anyone understands, Gilligan certainly understands how the refining of a pitcher's mechanics becomes a constant work in progress.... even if you happen to be a major college freshman All-America right-hander.
That's why Gilligan had to help Port Neches-Groves sophomore Eric Harrington to get out of a pre-season rut just a week ago.
Harrington's 8-1 freshman season earned him the honor of being tonight's opening game starter at Vincent-Beck Stadium, but the younger sibling of Padres prospect and former LU lefty Allen Harrington was struggling.
Gilligan modestly kicked himself a bit on Wednesday for not spotting Eric's technique problem sooner, but at least the LU boss spotted it.
Eric's pre-season deliveries arrived too flat and too high in the strike zone. Any pitcher knows that spells trouble. Jim and Eric hope they have identified things soon enough for tonight's opening mound outing. Older brother Allen will hang close and eyeball Eric's first two starts before he departs for San Diego's training camp in Arizona.
"I should have spotted it sooner but Eric regained his arm about a week ago," Gilligan recalled. "Sometimes it's a fine line between good technique and average technique. He was getting too low with his elbow."
Before his last intra-squad start on Thursday, Harrington adjusted the height off his pitching elbow in his motion way before his release point. It's a common mechanical problem. Eric has coped with it before even at Lamar.
"Coach Gilligan made sure that I stayed above the belt with my arm before my start last Thursday," Harrington said.
Again, the LU pitching guru is right. There is such a fine line in great mechanics and a pitcher has to have them. If a pitcher is to low with his elbow prior to releasing his pitches, the ball flattens out too much and a batter sends it for a ride in the opposite direction.
That could spell disaster for a LU pitcher's early-season earned run average because Vincent-Beck Stadium's wind often will blow straight to center field early in the season.
"It's right before the release point and it affects mainly the movement on the ball," Harrington said. "It doesn't affect the velocity that much but my pitches aren't that flat any more."
Harrington will throw the fast ball, slider and changeup "pretty much on any count" and he has become better than ever on his pitch location after a year of going from PN-G's purple cap to LU's red one.
"It was a lot easier to overpower hitters in high school," Harrington recalled. "You get here in Division 1 baseball and you don't overpower anyone. You have to learn how to pitch when you get here."
Older brother Allen -- himself a former LU pitching ace -- has helped Eric to make that adjustment sooner than many young college pitching prospects. Gilligan works great with him too, but Jim readily admits Eric's freshman season amounted to pretty much a smooth sail.
"Most of it was (a smooth sail)," Gilligan said. "Eric was pretty consistent all year. He got a little tired toward the end of the season, but you're talking about a guy who started out being a '3 hole' guy to being an ace."
The only thing left for Eric to do this weekend is to become the life of Lamar baseball's New Year's Day celebration.
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