Player Name: Nick DiEva
School: Stony Brook
Position: RHP
Nick is a 6’0″ 180 lb freshman pitcher from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He has a very quick and aggressive delivery. He steps back very briefly and begins his leg kick. His hands are held low but he raises them head-high at the next phase of the delivery.His balance position is very sound. He has a straight backleg and has a tight leg kick that is about letter height. He keeps his eye on the target throughout the delivery. He does not drive with his backleg very much. His front leg lands bent but raoidly straightens out. He throws directly over the top and finishes square to home plate with a slight fall off to the first base side.
In his March 16 outing, he threw 3.1 innings, allowing seven hits and five runs ( 0 ER). He struck out four batters and walked two. The first batter hit a well-struck ball directly at the shortstop who botched the play. It was with two outs so every run after that was unearned. The next batter hit a popup that landed on the chalk for an RBI double. Those were out of his control, but he did allow a well-struck double down the left field line from a left-handed batter. DiEva was around the strike zone but did fall behind with his curveball on a few occasions.
In his second, third and fourth innings of work, he was much more efficient. He had a 1-2-3 inning with two strikeouts, and one walk in his next inning.
He is not an especially hard thrower, he was in the mid 80s, but he will need to get the release point on his curveball if he is going to throw it early in the count to get ahead. It has a pretty sharp break so many hitters would prefer to lay off a nasty pitch early in the count.
Stony Brook has a deep pitching staff but DiEva will certainly get innings because he has a quality fastball and he can throw strikes. That is valuable at any level.
