Brad Everett, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 15, 2021
Patrick Monteverde stood confidently on the pitcher’s mound at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, staring at the catcher’s mitt as he prepared to throw his first pitch for one of the top Division I college baseball programs in the country.
Despite the fact he was pitching in a Major League ballpark, Monteverde, an Indiana Township native and Fox Chapel High School graduate, had the same thoughts dancing in his mind that he does during every start.
“Let’s show them who you are,” he said. “Let’s do this thing.”
The thing is, what the hard-throwing left-hander is doing has rarely been seen in college baseball.
For Monteverde, becoming a college baseball star has not been easy.
His ability to go from Division III to Division I baseball while overcoming Tommy John surgery and making just four appearances total in 2019 and 2020, is something out of a Hollywood movie.
His jump from high school through all three classifications in college to where he is now, the top starter for Texas Tech, is the script for that movie. Through three starts, he has been one of the best starting pitchers in the Big 12 Conference.
In 18 innings of work, Monteverde, a senior graduate transfer, has yet to allow a run and has given up only six hits and two walks while striking out 23. Opposing hitters are batting just .105 against him. Texas Tech is reaping the dividends, as the Red Raiders are ranked No. 9 in the country.
“I just don’t know if this has ever happened, someone going 3 to 2 to 1,” said Seton Hill’s Marc Marizzaldi, Monteverde’s Division II coach. “He’s doing it at a high-level school. And he’s not just a guy who walked onto the team. He’s the No. 1 guy.”
Starting young
Monteverde’s ascension began when he was a 7-year-old getting his feet wet in the sport. He played “coach pitch” that season for a team coached by his dad, Dave, and the fathers of two teammates.
Even as the only child of Dave and his wife, Clare, nothing has been handed to Patrick over the years, his father said. Some of that has to do with the fact that Dave and Clare had to scrap for everything they had as kids, as they were both the youngest of 12 children.
Patrick’s drive to be the best is most evident by the way he has approached his baseball career.
“I told him there are a couple of ingredients he needs to take him where he wants to go,” Dave said. “You have to have passion, which he does. And you have to be dedicated, which he definitely is.”
Mike Frank was Monteverde’s high school coach, and the two remain close. In his Fox Chapel days, Monteverde was a standout pitcher and, when he wasn’t on the mound, a terrific first baseman.
“He was intense, like a good type of intense,” Frank said. “We had a special group of guys that just all wanted to compete, that all wanted to win, and that all wanted to improve. That’s something obviously Patrick has continued to do.”
Today, Monteverde is 200 pounds and has a fastball in the mid-90s, but back then he had a much different look. He was 6 feet 2, 160 pounds and his fastball usually didn’t exceed 81 or 82 mph. But what Monteverde lacked in power he made up for in craftiness and deception. And with the help of coaches such as Frank and pitching coach Brett Horowitz, Monteverde became a two-time all-section pick and, as a junior in 2015, was the winning pitcher in Fox Chapel’s first playoff victory in 37 years.
But to recruiters, this pitcher wasn’t picture perfect. He didn’t throw very hard and he was viewed as being too skinny. The only school willing to extend him even a partial scholarship was Seton Hill, which competes in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.
“I saw a kid who had a really good feel for pitching who hadn’t physically developed yet,” said Marizzaldi, Seton Hill’s coach since the school added a baseball program in 2004.
As it turned out, Division II was still a few steps away, as Monteverde and Fox Chapel teammates Jake Pilarski and Zach Burkhart all decided to attend Division III Virginia Wesleyan, in Virginia Beach. Division III schools do not give out athletic scholarships. Pilarski is now a Division I pitcher, too, at The Citadel.
“I think there was always a dream to continue to see what levels he could jump,” Frank said. “Virginia Wesleyan is a solid D3 baseball program. There was no embarrassment going there. He was going to play baseball and see how it went.”
It went very well, to say the least. In his one season at Virginia Wesleyan, Monteverde sparkled, going 7-2 with a 1.96 ERA and struck out 60 in 82⅔ innings. He was named Rookie of the Year in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.
“I always knew I had talent and that brighter days were still ahead of me,” Monteverde said. “When I started talking about transferring from Virginia Wesleyan and going to Seton Hill, one of the guys said, ‘Why don’t you go Power Five?,’ and I just kind of laughed at him.”
Monteverde transferred to Seton Hill for his sophomore season, where he tossed six shutout innings in his first start and went on to finish 4-3 with a 2.92 ERA to go along with 78 strikeouts in 71 innings.
“I think it was a little bit of an adjustment going from D3 to the PSAC, but he came in and competed well,” said Marizzaldi, adding that Monteverde was up to about 175 pounds and was throwing in the mid- to upper-80s.
The injury
On March 8, 2019, Monteverde then a junior at Seton Hill, was pitching in the next-to-last game of the Griffins’ eight-game spring break trip in Florida. Monteverde, throwing in the low-90s, was cruising along against Augustana, S.D., in the third start of the season. He nearly pulled off an “immaculate inning” — nine pitches, nine strikes, three outs — in the sixth.
“It was probably the best inning of my life,” he said. “Six pitches. Two punchouts. The third kid I had 0-2 and I threw him a fastball inside and he took it. It was a hell of a take. The next pitch I threw a changeup and struck him out.”
That beauty of a frame was followed by the worst inning of his life. He went ahead 0-2 to the first hitter of the seventh before throwing a fastball up and in.
“As soon as I released it, I felt a pop in my elbow and I knew it wasn’t good,” he recalled.
His parents had just arrived home after visiting their son in Florida, and were listening to the game online at the time.
“[The announcer] said [Patrick] was shaking his arm and calling the coach out. Ten minutes later, he calls me,” Dave Monteverde said.
Patrick had torn the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm. He knew his junior season was over and he had a long rehab ahead of him. He had Tommy John surgery at Rothman Orthopaedic Institute in Philadelphia on March 29.
“I just felt so bad because he really worked his tail off between his first and second years to the point he really put himself as a potential pro guy,” Marizzaldi said. “He was going to be one of the better guys in the PSAC and had a good chance to go to pro ball.
“But I think that made his success story even bigger. He didn’t give up.”
By all accounts, Monteverde’s positive attitude played a big part in his recovery.
“I found him to be more positive than some of us who were around him,” said Frank. “He had a plan from the start. He was a kid that had done nothing but throw a baseball for a long time, and now he couldn’t.”
Added Monteverde: “I took it as an opportunity to get better.”
After five months of not throwing a baseball, Monteverde began tossing and was ready to go for the 2020 season. He gave up one unearned run in 2⅔ scoreless innings in his season debut on March 5, but then was dealt another setback. His redshirt junior season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But as the world was shutting down, Monteverde wasn’t feeling sorry for himself. Most of his sorrow was extended toward the family of Seton Hill teammate Maclean Maund, who died tragically that January.
“We were playing the season for him and his parents,” Monteverde said. “Honestly, when [the season] got canceled, I thought of him first.”
Man with a plan
For Monteverde, it was then a case of ‘what’s next?’ He and his adviser, Ben Simon, set up a plan. He would continue to refine his craft, graduate from Seton Hill that spring, and then put his name in the transfer portal in hopes of latching on with a Division I school, preferably a successful one located in a warm climate.
Monteverde’s stock was heating up, as his velocity was up to 95 mph and a slider was added to a repertoire that already included his fastball, curveball and changeup. Simon would have Monteverde pitch simulated games and then send the video to college coaches. Monteverde was bombarded with 43 total offers, including 24 from Power Five programs. He ultimately picked Texas Tech over Miami. Texas Tech had reached the College World Series in 2018 and 2019.
“He’s a guy that hit the portal and was available,” said Texas Tech coach Tim Tadlock, who has guided the Red Raiders to four CWS appearances in his eight seasons. “He’s a guy that was pretty highly recruited during the summer, but definitely was a guy that did not go to college throwing that hard. He’s definitely a guy who has come on.”
At Texas Tech, Monteverde is working toward a master’s degree in sports management. He earned a business degree at Seton Hill.
Monteverde was all business Feb. 20 when he took his latest step 1,200 miles from home. He was the opening-day starter for then-No. 3 Texas Tech, which was taking on SEC foe and No. 8-ranked Arkansas at Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers. He wasn’t the only Monteverde in attendance, though. There are quite a few of them in Texas, actually. A total of 43 in Houston alone, some of whom were there that evening.
“I wanted to do it for my family. It was the first time my name has been on the back of my jersey,” said Monteverde.
His parents had a few people over to their home to watch the game. Two of his former coaches, Frank and Marizzaldi, tuned in, as well.
“It felt like we were watching the World Series,” his father said.
Being it was his first start, Patrick was on a pitch count, but he still showed off his talent by tossing four scoreless innings while surrendering a hit and two walks. He struck out five.
Marizzaldi said two things were going through his mind while watching his former pitcher shine.
“It was great seeing him on that big stage and seeing him progressing at this level,” he said. “And I thought to myself, ‘God, I wish he was pitching for us.’ It would have been an automatic win every weekend.”
A week later against Houston Baptist, Monteverde was even better, throwing seven scoreless innings and striking out nine while allowing only two hits and no walks. With that he earned his first win as a Division I pitcher.
Dave and Clare made the trip to Houston to watch their son pitch March 5-7 at Minute Maid Park in Houston. About a dozen other family members were there, as well. The couple plans to make a return trip to Texas in April when Texas Tech hosts Baylor.
Monteverde’s story might could get more incredible over the next few months. He could play in the College World Series and he hopes to hear his name called in the Major League Baseball draft in July.
Monteverde said none of that is even on his mind, as he’s taking things just one start at a time. But like every other young baseball player, he dreams of playing in the big leagues one day. It’s just that his dream is more realistic than most.
“It would mean the world to me just to show every kid out there, just go do it,” he said. “Nobody can say you can’t. I was throwing 81 in high school, but I said I was going to do it. You just have to keep working at it.”
To Monteverde, his tremendous leap throughout the college baseball ranks have been sort of like stepping stones.
“They’re stepping stones to where I’m going,” Monteverde said. “But I haven’t peaked yet. There are a lot of stones left to go.”
Brad Everett: [email protected] and Twitter: @BREAL412.