Friday, April 10, 2009
Before the season even started, coach Ritch Price felt confident about a couple of players. One of them was sophomore outfielder Brian Heere.
Here, Lawrence native, was going to play a big part in how the season would progress, Price said. With an outfield full of question marks just two months ago, Price knew he would have to rely on the young sophomore being ready to perform at the plate.
Sophomore outfielder Brian Heere is greeted by other Jayhawks after scoring a run during the team's April 4 game against Baylor at Hoglund Ballpark. With, .375, Heere now has the second highest batting average on the team and now occupies the position in the lineup usually reserved for team's best overall hitter.
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Kansas vs. No. 17 Oklahoma State
Three-game series Hoglund Ballpark
Game 1: 6 p.m., Tonight
Game 2: 2 p.m., Saturday
Game 3: 1 p.m., Sunday
“He’s had a tremendous fall, I’m really pleased with his development,” Price said back in February at media day. “He’s a good runner and we’re going to move him into the two hole.”
Well, Price was right about Heere’s running abilities, and now Heere is doing it from the third spot in the order instead of the second. He has used his speed and his abilities to bunt and hit to all sides of the field to raise his batting average to .371, second highest on the team.
“He’s really had a nice run. There’s peaks and valleys to every hitter and he went through a little bit of a lull a couple of weeks ago,” Price said. “He’s on balance, swinging at strikes and using the whole field.”
For most of the season it looked as if Heere wasn’t going to be able to keep his batting average above .250, let alone .370. But with the third spot in the order in flux and junior second baseman Robby Price struggling early in the season, Heere’s emergence as a reliable hitter in the three hole has not only been a relief for Ritch Price, but allowed Robby and junior shortstop David Narodowski to move up in the order and see better pitches to hit.
“It’s put guys in position where with Narodowski and Robby at the top of the lineup are seeing more fastballs to hit,” Ritch said. “They’re swinging the bat a lot better because of that.”
Heere’s main goal heading into this season was to keep up his work from the fall. He said he wanted to carry over everything he learned and accomplished last fall before the season started.
“My biggest thing was trying to carry over my fall, I had a pretty good fall,” Heere said. “Tried to carry over my approaches and remember what I was seeing and how I felt in the fall and putting that into game situations on the spring.”
Since Heere’s move to third in the lineup, the Jayhawks have averaged 7.9 runs a game, a significant improvement. Heere is tied for fourth in runs scored with 23 and leads the team with a .483 on-base percentage. Kansas (20-12, 4-5) will need all the offense it can get this weekend against No. 18 Oklahoma State (21-11, 4-5).
But freshman first baseman Zac Elgie definitely appreciates what Heere’s batting has brought the Jayhawks since the lineup change.
“He’s one of those special guys that can hit a ball to all fields and drop a bunt down and beat it out,” Elgie said. “He’s got a pretty good skill set.”
Typically in baseball the third spot in the order is reserved for the team’s best overall hitter. Heere doesn’t have the power that some typical third-spot hitters have, but his batting average speaks for itself. The pressures of hitting in that spot have had no affect on Heere due to his down-to-earth personality, Price said.
“He’s such a low-key guy, and he doesn’t get excited about anything,” Price said. “His demeanor is probably one of the reasons he’s done so well so far.”
The rest of the Jayhawks are plenty excited with Heere’s play. Perhaps it will take a series victory over a ranked team for Heere to join in the excitement of his teammates.
— — Edited by Justin Leverett
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