Photo by: @EricEvansPhoto
Resilient Kleist Ready For WCWS
05/29/18 | Softball, @GoDucksMoseley
After an uncharacteristic outing in Super Regionals, Oregon junior ace Megan Kleist has worked hard to learn from the experience and move on to this week's World Series.
STILLWATER, Okla. — This past Friday, a day after starting Oregon's Super Regional opener against Kentucky, Megan Kleist sat through a video review session unlike any she'd experienced in more than two years.
Not since an outing at Cal in early May 2016, when she was a freshman, had Kleist been hit as hard as she was by the Wildcats in the Super Regional. The Ducks' junior ace allowed six earned runs before being pulled for a reliever with two outs in the fifth inning, after entering the day with an ERA for the season of 0.92.
A day later, Kleist sat down with a UO assistant to review film. Then, she began the process of building off what she learned from the loss, and moving on to the upcoming Women's College World Series, which begins for the Ducks against Arizona State on Thursday (9 a.m., ESPN).
"Good players find a way to work through adversity," Kleist said Tuesday, after Oregon's practice at the facilities of Oklahoma State. "I was upset about it, but my coach growing up always said, 'You get 5 minutes to pout about it.' Then you need to move on, and figure out how to get better."
Kleist enters the WCWS boasting ridiculous numbers for the season. She's 21-6 with a 1.14 ERA, and an absurd 214 strikeouts against just 17 walks. Her pitching coach as a youth in Wisconsin, former UO and Washington assistant turned first-year Buffalo head coach Mike Roberts, had another favorite maxim: Pitchers have their best stuff 5 percent of the time, and their worst stuff 5 percent of the time, needing to work through some things the other 90 percent. Most days in 2018, though, Kleist has looked like she had her best stuff.
UO coach Mike White has yet to tip his hand as to whether he'll pitch Kleist on Thursday, or go with sophomore Miranda Elish, the starter in both UO wins as the Ducks rallied back to win the series with Kentucky. But one bad outing hasn't planted any seed of doubt regarding Kleist.
"I have full confidence 'Kleisty' is 100 percent fine," senior catcher Gwen Svekis said. "She wouldn't be the Pac-12 pitcher of the year if she weren't good against the best of the best."
Kleist threw Tuesday in Oklahoma State's bullpen, and called it a successful session.
"Noticed some stuff in my mechanics a little bit," she said. "Sharpened it up a little bit, and I'm ready to go. Just holding on to that one-pitch mentality, and wiping everything from the past."
The "one-pitch mentality" is the understanding that the only pitch that matters is the next one. But Kleist didn't want to flush the Kentucky outing without making sure she learned something from it.
A litany of things contributed to the uncharacteristic performance. There were the mechanical elements she worked to fix Tuesday. There was a relatively tight strike zone, though certainly not the tightest she's ever dealt with, Kleist said. And there was a Kentucky lineup that had run-ruled all three of its NCAA Regional opponents, carrying over their hot bats against the Ducks.
"They were a very disciplined team," Kleist said. "They were not swinging at anything that some schools in the past have swung at. Stuff that would fool other hitters on 0-2, they weren't swinging at."
All of that contributed to Kleist experiencing an outing unlike many others in her UO career. It was only the third time in three seasons Kleist allowed more than three earned runs in an outing, and the first time since her freshman year.
"It was humbling; just when you start thinking your confidence is up, the man upstairs says, 'No, wait a minute,'" Kleist said. "I think it's going to help me, moving forward. I need to work hard and pay attention more to the game, and work with coach White and Gwen in the game, instead of just pitching.
"When I'm struggling, I need to really focus on hitting spots and pay more attention to the hitters — see if they're stepping open, stepping closed. Just pay more attention to the game, so I can just pitch to the locations I need to throw."
White indicated that Kleist needed to get back to basics — basics that have proven hugely successful the past few years. When Kleist works low in the zone, she's dominant. When she hits her spots, she's dominant.
"It's not like she doesn't have good stuff," White said. "It's just the execution."
Not since an outing at Cal in early May 2016, when she was a freshman, had Kleist been hit as hard as she was by the Wildcats in the Super Regional. The Ducks' junior ace allowed six earned runs before being pulled for a reliever with two outs in the fifth inning, after entering the day with an ERA for the season of 0.92.
A day later, Kleist sat down with a UO assistant to review film. Then, she began the process of building off what she learned from the loss, and moving on to the upcoming Women's College World Series, which begins for the Ducks against Arizona State on Thursday (9 a.m., ESPN).
"Good players find a way to work through adversity," Kleist said Tuesday, after Oregon's practice at the facilities of Oklahoma State. "I was upset about it, but my coach growing up always said, 'You get 5 minutes to pout about it.' Then you need to move on, and figure out how to get better."
Kleist enters the WCWS boasting ridiculous numbers for the season. She's 21-6 with a 1.14 ERA, and an absurd 214 strikeouts against just 17 walks. Her pitching coach as a youth in Wisconsin, former UO and Washington assistant turned first-year Buffalo head coach Mike Roberts, had another favorite maxim: Pitchers have their best stuff 5 percent of the time, and their worst stuff 5 percent of the time, needing to work through some things the other 90 percent. Most days in 2018, though, Kleist has looked like she had her best stuff.
UO coach Mike White has yet to tip his hand as to whether he'll pitch Kleist on Thursday, or go with sophomore Miranda Elish, the starter in both UO wins as the Ducks rallied back to win the series with Kentucky. But one bad outing hasn't planted any seed of doubt regarding Kleist.
"I have full confidence 'Kleisty' is 100 percent fine," senior catcher Gwen Svekis said. "She wouldn't be the Pac-12 pitcher of the year if she weren't good against the best of the best."
Kleist threw Tuesday in Oklahoma State's bullpen, and called it a successful session.
"Noticed some stuff in my mechanics a little bit," she said. "Sharpened it up a little bit, and I'm ready to go. Just holding on to that one-pitch mentality, and wiping everything from the past."
The "one-pitch mentality" is the understanding that the only pitch that matters is the next one. But Kleist didn't want to flush the Kentucky outing without making sure she learned something from it.
A litany of things contributed to the uncharacteristic performance. There were the mechanical elements she worked to fix Tuesday. There was a relatively tight strike zone, though certainly not the tightest she's ever dealt with, Kleist said. And there was a Kentucky lineup that had run-ruled all three of its NCAA Regional opponents, carrying over their hot bats against the Ducks.
"They were a very disciplined team," Kleist said. "They were not swinging at anything that some schools in the past have swung at. Stuff that would fool other hitters on 0-2, they weren't swinging at."
All of that contributed to Kleist experiencing an outing unlike many others in her UO career. It was only the third time in three seasons Kleist allowed more than three earned runs in an outing, and the first time since her freshman year.
"It was humbling; just when you start thinking your confidence is up, the man upstairs says, 'No, wait a minute,'" Kleist said. "I think it's going to help me, moving forward. I need to work hard and pay attention more to the game, and work with coach White and Gwen in the game, instead of just pitching.
"When I'm struggling, I need to really focus on hitting spots and pay more attention to the hitters — see if they're stepping open, stepping closed. Just pay more attention to the game, so I can just pitch to the locations I need to throw."
White indicated that Kleist needed to get back to basics — basics that have proven hugely successful the past few years. When Kleist works low in the zone, she's dominant. When she hits her spots, she's dominant.
"It's not like she doesn't have good stuff," White said. "It's just the execution."
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