Now we know why we were so excited about Zach Lutz on Opening Day last year!
A promising fifth-round draft pick in 2007, Lutz was the Cyclones’ starting third baseman — but he broke his ankle in the very first inning and was out for the entire season.
But in his Opening Day, Part 2 on Tuesday night, Lutz showed Cyclones fans that he was worth the wait.
He got the ’Clones on the board in the bottom of the first with a laser-like double to left, then showed his battling side, scraping out a walk in a 16-pitch at-bat in the third.
But it was in the fifth that Lutz showed his potential to get out of Class A ball quickly: With a 2-2 count and a man on third, Lutz punched an outside pitch to right to drive in the run. Though it went in the scorebooks as a groundout, Lutz showed amazing bat control — and, more important, professionalism.
“I was just trying to put the ball in play,” the Mohnton, Penn., native told us in his aw shucks manner.
“It does feel great to get that first game under my belt,” he added. “It’s been one long year of hard work to get here. They put two screws in my foot and I worked hard and didn’t take anything for granted to get back here.”
But Cyclone fans should not be fooled into thinking they’ll get two RBIs every night out of the 6-foot-1 righty.
“But I am going to work hard all season for the fans,” he said.
Switch-Pitcher
The Staten Island Yankees have two switch-hitters on their roster — pretty standard fare.
What’s not so standard is that they also have a switch-pitcher on the team, Pat Venditte.
Look carefully at this Yankee roster and you’ll see an “S” listed in the column for pitchers’ throwing arm.
“I started throwing when I was 3-years-old,” Venditte, of Omaha, Neb., told The Brooklyn Paper’s Eye of the Storm coverage before his Baby Bombers took on the Cyclones in the season opener on Tuesday night.
“It was my father’s idea; he took handprints and sent them to Mizuno in Japan — and in a few months, they sent back a special six-fingered glove that I could wear on either hand.”
The 6-foot-1 Venditte pitched in high school, and then was a walk-on candidate at Creighton University. A reliever, he was drafted in the 20th round this year after compiling a 9-3 record and an ERA of 3.34 — all the while using both arms.
He did not pitch in the season opener against the Cyclones, but was poised to face the Brooks soon enough.
“It’s a physical advantage,” he said, “but it’s a psychological advantage, as well. Several hitters have told me that my switch-pitching gets in their heads a bit.”
Venditte is used to the heavy workload of keeping both arms finely tuned.
“My body and arms are used to the workouts, but pitching right-handed (his natural side) does take more out of me because I throw harder that way,” said the affable hurler.
Venditte is used to all the attention that his unusual situation brings.
“Teammates are really curious when I first join a team, but then in a few days they get used to it, and everything seems normal to them,” he said.
There have been only a few ambidextrous pitchers in baseball history. Greg Harris pitched with both hands on Sept. 28, 1995, the first major leaguer to go both ways since Tony Mullane did it in 1893 for the Baltimore Orioles.
As Venditte stood talking near the Yankees’ dugout at Keyspan Park, he took all the attention in stride. What seemed to really excite him was over the left-field wall, and he pointed in that direction.
“What I really want is to go there — Nathan’s,” he said with a hungry grin.
Perhaps he’ll order two hot dogs and eat them simultaneously — using both hands, of course.
