Medick pleased with turnaround season

JOLIET – What a difference a year has made for Joliet Slammers pitcher Spencer Medick.

Last season at this time, he was dealing with injuries and hadn’t even played. And then when he finally got the chance to compete, he struggled.

But this year, he’s tied with five other pitchers with five victories, which is the third-highest win total in the Frontier League. Only two other pitchers, Southern Illinois’ Josh Kimborowicz (6-0) and former teammate Liam O’Sullivan (5-0), have as many victories without a loss.

He’ll also be the first to acknowledge that playing on a much-improved Joliet squad that has one of the league’s top offenses and a very good defense definitely helps.

“Last year was a tough year for me,” Medick said. “I had my ups and downs and was hurt and kind of battled through injury early in the year, and spent half the year on the D.L. and was fortunate enough to get an opportunity from (Jeff) Isom to come to Joliet. He gave me a shot and brought me back again this year.

“There’s definitely a different team dynamic this year. We’ve been hot with the bats lately, we’re playing great defense and we’ve been pitching better and better, and that was kind of the question mark going into this season.”

After going 1-4 last season with a 4.96 ERA as a starter for the Slammers, he’s significantly improved his won-loss record and also dropped his ERA by nearly a point to 4.11.

He’s won five of his last seven starts and has gone at least five innings in each of those outings.

While O’Sullivan, the Slammers’ most reliable starter has moved on, the rest of the rotation is confident they can continue the improvement that they’ve shown since early in the season. Much of Joliet’s recent success is due to consistently good starts from its pitchers.

“I just feel a lot more prepared this year,” Medick said. “I can trust my stuff a little bit better and can go out and attack hitters the way that I want to without worrying about pitch counts or if my arm is going to hold up. I just feel super prepared and know that I can go out every fifth day and get the job done and give my team a chance to win.”

“We have a good bullpen that we can trust if there’s a game where we can’t get the job done. But at the same time, the starters are competing against each other a little bit and trying to pitch better than our last outing. We all want to be the guy on the pitching staff. It’s always a good feeling when every day you can run out a starter that you can trust to get the job done.”

While Medick likes what he’s seen from the Slammers’ pitchers since early in the season, he’s also obviously pleased with the offense and defense that the rest of his teammates have provided the staff, as well as the close-knit group of players who’ve helped their team get off to a 28-18 start.

“The offense definitely makes it easier on the pitching staff so all that we have to do is go out there and pitch with good tempo and get them back in the dugout so that they swing it,” Medick said. “It’s been a lot of fun. We have a good team dynamic right now and we all get along and show up at the ballpark every day expecting to win. We don’t ride the highs too high or the lows too low.

“We’re all trying to get to the next level, but at the same time, we’re all pulling for each other. Everyone was excited when Liam and Boo (Vazquez) got picked up and we expect a few more guys to get picked up. There’s really not a lot of selfishness in the clubhouse, which is awesome to see.”

When asked what he likes to do in his time away from the sport, Medick, who finished his college career at North Carolina’s Elon University before having a stint in the Diamondbacks’ organization, admits that he spends a lot of time focused on how to become a better pitcher.

“I’m a hardcore baseball guy,” Medick said. “I definitely love trying to figure out how to prepare myself for my next start. I’m doing a lot of research on the mechanics of throwing and physical preparation. I guess one of my hobbies is how can I tinker with my body and pitching mechanics and my workouts, conditioning and throwing program so I can kind of figure out what works best for me.

“I have a good friend who’s actually writing my in-season conditioning and strength program and we do it almost on a day-by-day or week-by-week basis since no two starts are the same. And I pull a lot of my information and offseason throwing program from a place in Seattle called Driveline and they do a lot of in-depth, bio-mechanical things that are kind of on the nerdy side of baseball. But it’s awesome since most athletes like myself are workhorses. Tell us to do something and we’ll do it.”