DENNIS SILVA II | STAFF WRITER
EDINBURG — Edinburg High baseball coach Robert Valdez knew. His assistant coaches knew. The players knew.
It was hardly mentioned, however, and there was quite a bit of studying in an effort to figure out if what they knew really was. But since the start of fall workouts and into the scrimmages, non-district and district seasons, and now playoffs, the Bobcats knew.
“We knew we had a chance to be special,” Valdez said. “We just didn’t know how special we could be.”
The reason for that was pitching. Valdez knew he had a band of arms, from Texas Tech junior commit John Gonzalez to seniors Luis Ortega, Jaime Alvarado and Michael Castillo.
“They started to set their own goals, they started to push each other and lean on each other,” Valdez said. “It’s a culmination of their character and their drive to succeed.”
The quartet has led a Bobcats staff that has a 1.08 team ERA with 2.82 strikeouts per walk and just 28 earned runs in 182 innings. Gonzalez (9-0, 0.12 ERA) is the ace, with just one earned run in 57 innings, but Ortega, Alvarado and Castillo are stars in their own right. It was just last weekend that Ortega and Alvarado put the clamps on Laredo United in Game 2 of their regional quarterfinal to earn a sweep of the state-ranked Longhorns.
The reason Edinburg High (24-3-1) is in the fourth round of the playoffs for the first time since the 1956 Bobcats is because of pitching. How good is it? These Bobcats went 59 innings from the district season and into the playoffs without allowing an earned run.
“We talk every day about winning the pitch,” said Ortega, 5-1 with a 0.94 ERA. “That means throwing the right pitch and hitting the spot you’re told to.”
There is no secret to the Bobcats’ pitching success.
“What we do isn’t rocket science,” Valdez said. “We’ve begged, borrowed and stolen from others’ ideas. We do a lot of weight training, a lot of endurance running. We really challenge the mind and see how far we can push them. We want to see kids grow.”
Pitching coach David Kaz, in his 16th season, said calling it a “perfect storm” of talent would be appropriate. Over the years he has simplified his workouts.
“It just seems like it works,” Kaz said of making drills less complex. “It doesn’t matter who you put out there, it seems we’re always on the same page now. Everything is just clicking.”
Continuity is the primary reason for that. Gonzalez, Ortega, Alvarado and Castillo have pitched together the last three years, and the latter three have been together the last four.
Valdez, Kaz, and assistant coach Toby Gonzales have coached together the last seven years, and assistant coach Mike Soto has been with the program the last six.
“Since the beginning of the year, we’ve talked about our experience,” Valdez said. “It’s been some growing pains the last few years, not getting past that first round of the playoffs until this year, but it’s been a rejoice to see the benefits and reach these goals and see these kids really establish a brotherhood.”
A perfect example of that bond is Castillo. Castillo ate up most of the Bobcats’ innings in previous years, but in moving to catcher full-time this season he saw his pitching appearances limited (six).
But the pay-off is that he knows what pitch Kaz will call — sometimes before Kaz can even call it, the coach said — and understands pitching situations as well as anyone.
“We have so much chemistry on this team that it makes life a lot easier,” Castillo said. “We’re always together, we’re always pushing each other and we’re always talking about how we can get better. We all have the same mentality, and that’s to get outs.”
In the area playoff round against Eagle Pass, the Bobcats won Game 3 1-0 in eight innings. In Games 1 and 2 last week against Laredo United, Edinburg High pulled off wins in the seventh innings of each.
All three instances were set up by pitching.
“We don’t think two or three pitches ahead or two outs ahead,” Castillo said. “We’ve been told that since our freshman year. It was hard at first, because it’s not easy to think pitch by pitch; you always want to think about what’s coming. We have a real mature pitching staff right now.”
Great pitching and a defense that doesn’t make mistakes — the Bobcats have amassed 36 errors in 28 games and boast a .953 fielding percentage — can go a long way for confidence.
It allows the mindset that the Bobcats are never out of a series, let alone a game.
“We’ve been in fortunate situations to where our pitchers battle,” Valdez said. “They give us a chance. But by the same token, I don’t want this to be a false sense of confidence. There will be adversity, and that’s where the offseason mental challenges can benefit.
“This has been a plan that’s been in motion, and now they’re carrying it out.”