Baseball Team Off to Good Start

Just a little more than one-third of the way through the season, Thomas Nelson baseball coach Todd Barker is confident his team is better than last year's.

"I just don't know yet how much better we are," he said, which is why he's looking forward to the start of the conference season March 19. "When we start playing those conference games, I'll get a better idea of where we are compared to some other teams."

The Gators were 9-8 heading into the weekend, which was spurred by a stretch of seven wins in eight games.

"We're playing good baseball," Barker said.

Several his players are among the NJCAA national leaders in a variety of categories.

Tyler Butler was hitting .491 with nine home runs and 28 runs batted in. He's first in the nation in the latter category, and second in the nation in HRs.

"Tyler Butler has been huge," Barker said. "He's absolutely killing the ball."

Nakenje Jones was second in the nation with 18 stolen bases, and Justin Johnson was tied for third with 12.

Pitcher Pablo Veras was 2-0, and tops in the nation with five saves.

"He's made huge strides as a pitcher from last year to this year," Barker said. "He's done a lot of work in the offseason. He did a lot of work all fall and winter. His velocity is up quite a bit from where he was last year."

Pitcher William Hudgins is 2-1 and striking out 8.87 batters per nine innings.

From what he's seen so far, Barker predicts defense, especially in the infield, will be a strength, in addition to pitching.

"Our pitching is much better than it's been in years past, as far as just the depth part of it," he said.

Barker said last year's team had two or three really good pitchers, but not much depth. This year, his top arms aren't as good as last year, but he has more depth.

"We are able to stay competitive," he said.

To prove his point, four of his team's losses are by four or fewer runs.

While Barker is in his third season with the Gators, this is the first team with players he was able to recruit. He was hired late in 2019 so his initial season in 2020 was filled with players recruited by the previous coach. Then, with most of the 2020 high school season canceled because of the pandemic, he couldn't recruit by sight for the 2021 season. He had to call coaches he knew to find players by word of mouth.

Finally, last year he was able to recruit in person.

"This is the first group where I was able to go out last spring and watch some high school games, watch some travel tournaments, and bring in some kids that I knew, that I had watched a few times," he said.

It's also the Gators' first full season since 2019. The 2020 season was cut short because of the pandemic, and last year they had just 31 games. This year, Barker is expecting to play almost 50.

"The team is buying in," Barker said, which isn't always easy for young players.

And his 30-man roster is young with just eight sophomores.

He's not sure how good the conference will be this year, so being consistent will be key. He will lean on his pitching staff there.

"Not allowing the opponent to have big innings," he said will be important. "If they score a run, let's limit it to one, and give ourselves a chance."

He's ready for the conference season to start.

"I think we'll have a lot more success than we've had," he said.

He just doesn't know how much more.

For the schedule, stats and more, go to https://www.tnccbaseball.com/teams/default.asp?u=TNCCBASEBALL&s=baseball&p=home.