Keene, n.h.
To batters like Upper Valley outfielder Adam Chase — whose spring team, Franklin Pierce, played Wirchansky’s Pace University in the Northeast-10 Conference Championship on May 11 — facing a vocal pitcher can be a little jarring. Baseball is normally a quiet game; communication, for the most part, is limited to body language. Being vocal also can sometimes be misjudged as an intimidation tactic, a situation that Wirchanky said has happened to him before.
“Danny just talks to himself,” Chase said recently on the Valley News Hawks Talk podcast. “I faced him during the season, so I saw it firsthand in the batters box. … You can hear it. It’s bananas.”
Added outfielder Anthony Godino (Wagner): “It’s working for him. He’s pitching well.”
Call it a personal tick or a motivation technique. Whatever he’s saying, it’s working; the Nighthawks don’t want him to shut up anytime soon.
Wirchansky is Upper Valley’s ace halfway through its second season in the New England Collegiate Baseball League. The Rockland Community College transfer is 3-0 with 17 strikeouts and four walks allowed.
He also tossed 19 consecutive shutout innings, but that shutout streak ended in the first inning of Thursday’s game at Keene as the Swamp Bats’ Nathaniel Eikhoff sent a two-run double into left field, spoiling Wirchansky’s fourth start of the summer minutes after it began. But the 6-0, 190-pound lefty settled down, giving up five hits, two runs and one walk in five innings with six strikeouts.
“When I was younger, my travel coach — I’d play on a team with guys four years older than me — he’d always say, ‘Don’t be afraid of these guys,’ ” Wirchansky said after Thursday’s 5-4 win over the Keene Swamp Bats at Alumni Field. “Getting on the mound, I’d talk to myself just to get amped up to show myself that yeah, I could play with these guys. Yeah, they may be bigger, stronger faster, but you can play with these guys.
“It’s not like (I’m) saying anything toward the opponent,” he added. “They might think of it that way because I might be a little too loud. But it’s mostly just to pump myself up and just to motivate myself to do better.”
So, what does he say?
“It’s all kinds of stuff,” he said. “If the second guy gets a hit, I’ll get in my head like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I messed up on that pitch.’ If I hang a change-up, I’ll say, ‘Alright, that’s your fault. Make the adjustment.’ It gets in my head. But it’s something that pumps me up.”
There are times, Wirchansky admitted, when other teams take exception: “Other teams will think I’m saying something toward them. They’ll start chirping at me. I actually love when they chirp because it motivates me more.”
Wirchansky’s spring season at Pace was something of a whirlwind. He transferred from Rockland in the fall; spring was his first semester with the Setters. On a new team, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, Wirchansky admitted he pushed himself too hard. He tried to get everyone out, blow every pitch past his opponent. He finished the spring 4-5 with a 3.31 ERA in 13 appearances and 11 starts, striking out 65 hitters in 70⅔ innings.
“I was a mid-year transfer. Going in, I didn’t know what I was going to be, what my role was and what I was going to be with the team,” he said. “I only knew some of the guys … I kind of had it in my head that I had to make a good impression to the guys on the team. I overcompensated everything. I tried to throw harder than I can, I missed spots, tried to do a little too much instead of relaxing and just playing the game I love and enjoying every minute of it.
“I kind of loss a little confidence in the spring, seeing how I wasn’t winning games and not pitching to my capability,” he added. “But also, pitch command, working on off-speed and trying to find another pitch to back up my curveball, change-up and fast ball.”
The Stony Point, N.Y. native has settled down with the Nighthawks. The pressure is less intense in summer ball; hitters and pitchers can take more time working out the finer points of their game in a more relaxed setting. For Wirchansky, the first few weeks in the Upper Valley have allowed him to find his game.
If he’s talking to himself on the mound while he finds it, then so be it.
“Meeting all these guys, that kind of relaxed me,” Wirchansky said. “They’re all outgoing and friendly. That helped. Plus, it’s summer ball. You can’t be tense in summer ball. Especially with our bullpen. We’re all joking around, having some laughs and having a good time. That’s what summer ball is.”
Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.