The Final 302
5/27/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 27, 2009
- By Joe Guistina, USC Upstate Assistant Media Relations Director
SPARTANBURG, S.C. - Ten days, five appearances, three starts, 302 pitches.
Senior Dennis McCraney's last week and a half as a member of the USC Upstate baseball team was more than memorable. It was career-defining. It was record-breaking.
And it all happened after he graduated with a bachelor's degree in business management.
It is the kind of story that will be told by head coach Matt Fincher until the day he retires, a story of sacrificing for the good of the team, a story of devotion to the program and a story of the rewards for making such a sacrifice.
--
Assistant coach Russell Triplett's plan was controversial.
From 350 miles away, head coach Fincher was sending an acid-filled text message to Upstate's assistant media relations director.
"How long was McCraney in?"
"One batter," the response came.
"Good. I can stop being upset then," Fincher answered.
Senior Dennis McCraney walked that batter, who later scored, but Upstate held on for a 5-3 win on May 15 at Campbell in the first game of the doubleheader. In the process, he tied the school record for career appearances with 76.
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When McCraney entered the USC Upstate baseball program in 2006, the program was quickly becoming a very competitive NCAA Division II program. Three players in McCraney's first two years went on to play professional baseball. The team won 67 games and was ranked at some point in each season, reaching as high as 18th in the country in 2007.
In 2008, the school moved its athletic programs to Division I and in the first year in the Atlantic Sun Conference, the Spartans went 17-16 in the league, posting its first winning record in league play since 1990.
McCraney was a large part of that success, posting a 9-4 career record and appearing in 57 games, including 46 as a reliever.
A versatile pitcher, McCraney served as a midweek starter as a freshman before moving to the bullpen for the next two years. Initially, the move was made to deepen the Spartans bullpen and give the team a second quality left-handed arm in late-inning relief.
"I don't think either one of us looked at it as a demotion," Fincher said of McCraney's move to the bullpen. "We moved him to the bullpen because we thought he could pitch in more games and have a greater impact on what we're doing more than pitching one day a week."
At the end of his sophomore year, though, while pitching in the Southern Collegiate Baseball League, McCraney tore a ligament in his elbow. Though it showed evidence of healing that made surgery unnecessary, it also made the bullpen the only logical spot for the 6-1 left-hander.
--
Fincher wouldn't have been upset if what had happened nine days earlier didn't happen.
In the midst of their worst season since 2001, the Spartans had just returned from a 10-day break by defeating Wofford, 13-2, on Tuesday, for their 11th win of the season. Later that night, McCraney received his degree in business management during the University's commencement. The next day, Upstate took the three-hour trip to Charleston to face The Citadel.
Fincher and pitching coach Ryan Fecteau decided to give McCraney the ball to start. Although McCraney had started three other games during the season, all of them had been more than a month earlier and he hadn't gotten through the fifth inning in any of those efforts. No matter, just as in those starts when McCraney picked up wins against defending Atlantic 10 Champion Charlotte and N.C. A&T and a loss at Wake Forest, Fincher gave the ball to McCraney asking him to just pitch a couple good innings.
"Every time I made a start, coach said to just give us three good innings and then we'll figure it out from there," McCraney said, "So I think that helped me out a lot, not having to get six or seven. It helped break the game down because if I can get three and give up a run, then I'm still going to be in the game."
A 5-0 lead by the second inning gave McCraney confidence and even after a run scored and three straight hits loaded the bases with no outs in the third, a sac fly and a groundball double play was enough to keep McCraney in the game.
Near the first base dugout, you could overhear several Bulldog coaches and players telling each other, "Make him bring the ball up."
Keeping the ball down in the strike zone, McCraney went 2 2/3 more innings, the longest outing since his freshman year, even though he threw just 76 pitches and left the game with a 6-3 lead against the Bulldogs, who finished the season with 37 wins.
"We started him a number of times not anticipating that he would go deep into the game," Fincher said. "There was a piece of me that didn't want him to go deep into games because we wanted to use him later in the week. Given our pitching situation, though, we had to use him as a starter. At The Citadel, he went out there and got through innings. We looked up and it was the middle of the game and we had a shot. That's what you wished every starter could do for you and he did it."
The lead stood and McCraney had his third win of the season, giving a successful start to a wearying 10-day stretch to wrap up the Rock Hill, S.C., native's career.
--
The tear in his elbow was the start of a rollercoaster junior season for McCraney. He made 21 appearances and from March 22 to April 9, he posted a 0.93 ERA in 9 2/3 innings. However, the nagging elbow injury made him less effective at the end of the season, as he finished the year with an 8.46 era and a 2-3 record, a far cry from his 4.94 ERA and 4-1 record from his sophomore year. He was even shut down for a conference weekend for the only time in his career toward the end of the season.
"I could throw at the beginning of the week and then by the weekend, I would struggle with my throwing motion," McCraney said. "We had some issues last year, though, where we needed arms, so I felt like I needed to try. I knew that if I felt all right, I could still go out there and pitch competitively against teams."
--
After Upstate won its third game in a row on Thursday over Charleston Southern, the team had practice on Friday to prepare for a three-game weekend set with North Florida. For the second game of the series, on Saturday, just two days after his start at The Citadel, Fincher asked McCraney if he could start.
"I was sort of shocked they asked me," McCraney said. "Coach said, `Come talk to me, Dennis.' So I walked over to his golf cart and he said, `How do you feel about starting...' I thought he was talking about South Carolina on Tuesday, with a week's rest. Then he said, `the second game tomorrow.'"
In reality, what Fincher was hoping for was two or three innings out of McCraney in order to give the offense and his pitching staff some momentum to get going against North Florida. What he got, well, was beyond that.
McCraney, making appearance No. 74 in his career, used his weary arm to throw six scoreless innings, not even allowing a runner to reach second base before finally giving up a double to start the seventh inning. Even though North Florida ended up scoring four runs in the inning, all off McCraney, to tie the game, he had kept Upstate in the game, just as Fincher had hoped.
When Jimmy Tanner reached on an error to score the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning, McCraney was one of the first to reach Eric Guillen at the plate to celebrate the second win in school history over the Ospreys.
"He wants to pitch," Fincher said of his decision to start McCraney on the short rest. "He'll do the best he can and he did (against UNF). That quick turnaround there is indicative of that. It was borderline superhuman for him to go out there and compete to the degree and level that he did."
--
The start to his 2009 season was just as rough as the end to 2008 for McCraney. In his first 2 2/3 innings, he allowed seven runs. He didn't pitch for a full week until finally, Fincher and Fecteau decided to try to give McCraney a start against North Carolina A&T on March 10, to see if starting the senior would help him find a rhythm.
"Coach Fecteau and I worked on dropping my arm slot a little bit to where at A&T, I was throwing almost three-quarters," McCraney said. "That was the first game I ever pitched like that."
Although expected to just go two or three innings in the start, McCraney pitched four, allowing just three hits and leading Upstate to an 8-3 win. A week later, he pitched 3 1/3 innings against Charlotte, allowing seven hits and a run, but it was enough to help the Spartans to a 4-3 win. In both cases, he earned the win in the planned short starts.
Part of his success was his newfound success with a two-seam fastball. While his four-seam fastball was drifting up in the zone early in the season, the two-seamer dived down, forcing either groundballs or harmless pop ups.
After a poor start against Wake Forest on April 7, he spent the rest of the month in the bullpen, appearing in five more games, pitching well in spurts, even allowing just two runs and two hits in 3 1/3 innings against South Carolina on April 21, throwing up 2 2/3 innings of scoreless work before finally allowing a run.
--
Appearance No. 75 was short. One inning of work, a walk and a hit, but no damage done against NCAA Regional participant South Carolina.
"Just another scoreless inning against Carolina," McCraney laughed.
It was Tuesday, just six days after throwing against The Citadel, just three days after throwing against North Florida. The southpaw had thrown 176 pitches and 12 2/3 innings in the span. The plan was set in motion for him to throw one more game, against Campbell on Friday to close the season.
Chris Fowler's fingerprints are left all over the USC Upstate record book. From 1989-92, he set the school's record for best ERA (3.15), saves (20) and appearances (76). He also recorded a 14-6 record and helped lead the Rifles to a NAIA District Six title in 1990 and a final ranking of 29th in Division II in 1991. His mark as one of the best pitchers in school history was safe even as Dennis McCraney stood tall on the mound at South Carolina.
--
In the dugout before the series opener with Campbell on Thursday afternoon, Upstate's ace pitcher, Matt Branham, was killing time, talking with McCraney about the notes about the series posted on UpstateSpartans.com. When he saw the assistant media relations director, he said, "How many strikeouts do I need for the record?"
"Six." And when he took the mound on Saturday before McCraney relieved him, he fanned seven to set the school's single-season record.
"And how many does McCraney need to break the appearances record?"
"One to tie the record, two to break."
Triplett, acting as head coach while Fincher was with his ailing mother in Athens, Ga., looked at McCraney, standing next to Branham, and said, "Well, if you need two, we'll get you two."
For his part, McCraney had to be talked into it. "I didn't want to say anything about it because I didn't want to look selfish," he said. "If it was broken, it was broken. If I tied it, I tied it. It makes no difference, but they were pretty excited about it."
--
On Friday afternoon, as Branham carved through the Campbell lineup, which entered the weekend 10th in the NCAA in runs per game, McCraney eased into his warm-ups. After seven innings of work, Branham's day finished with Upstate holding a 4-2 lead. McCraney came in, walked a batter and left the game.
The runner scored, but senior Phillip Myers, pitching with bone chips in his elbow in his final career appearance, closed the gate with two scoreless innings to give Upstate a 5-3 win.
As Upstate got prepared for the second game of the doubleheader, McCraney, already dripping sweat in the warm May sun, didn't need to do a lot to get ready. He took a couple ibuprofen tablets and thought about what he needed to do. He threw a quick bullpen and then was ready to go. He took the mound for his school-record 77th appearance.
Well, not quite ready to go. He walked two of the first three batters he faced in the first inning. In the dugout, Triplett said he was beginning to regret his decision to let him face a batter in the first game.
Then a fly ball and a fielder's choice ended the inning without any damage. From there until the eighth inning, no runner even reached second on McCraney. The Camels popped up, grounded out, but either way, they couldn't reach base. And when they did in the third, the runner was picked off by McCraney. In the fifth, a double play prematurely ended the Camels' rally.
He cruised past the point of his longest start - six innings - and by the eighth inning when two runners had reached base on an infield single and a hit batter, it was no surprise that another grounder to short ended the inning.
By this point, in Athens, Ga., Fincher had turned from a critic to an unabashed believer. The texts came, "He is going nine!"
"He is going to do it!"
The ninth inning, with an 8-0 lead, though, turned tense as the first hitter, senior Ryan Hamme hit a double and the next, senior Brian Gana, homered. After that, though, McCraney got a foul out and a strikeout. A single and a walk pumped his pitch count up to nearly 120 pitches, nearly as many as he had thrown in his previous two starts combined.
A grounder rolled to Guillen, who flipped over to second base and just like that, it was over. In his 77th and final appearance, he threw his first complete game.
"It was nice," he said afterwards. "I didn't know until that morning if my dad was going to be there or not because my grandmother had a heart attack and didn't end up making it through the morning. To do that, with them there and having that happen earlier that day, it was special. I had a feeling during the game that my grandmother didn't make it. To learn it afterwards, I know that something special was going on."
Fincher said, "I was real pleased for him. I was watching it on my phone and thinking, he is just as deserving as anybody to go out that way. He worked hard for four years. He did everything we asked of him. He's a great human being. To have that level of success his last time out was amazing."
--
So Upstate, which had a team ERA of 8.30 before the nine-day break for final exams, finished the season by winning seven of 11 games, leaning on the left wing of McCraney, who had a 7.94 ERA before the break. Many college graduates have a tough time answering the question, "What are you going to do now?"
For McCraney, at least initially, it was easy. He played baseball, finishing his last 10-day stretch having thrown 21 2/3 innings, compiling a 2-0 record and a 3.74 ERA. He lowered his season ERA to 5.89 and finished with a team-high four wins.
So now, the temporary answer aside, McCraney will head to Winthrop University to work towards his MBA. Not surprisingly, Coach Fincher has written a letter of recommendation for McCraney for a teaching assistantship at the school, albeit with an ultimatum.
"He told me if I didn't get it, he was going to be mad at me," McCraney smiled. "He was just joking, though."
