With only three seniors on its roster, some may look at the University of Kentucky baseball team and consider it a young one. However, upon consideration of the fact that all three seniors are in their fifth year after redshirting, that may not be the case.
“I feel like I’ve been here 10 years,” UK backstop Marcus Nidiffer said.
After redshirting his freshman season, the fifth-year senior has put together an impressive career so far for Kentucky, earning 2010 second-team preseason All-Southeastern Conference honors from SEbaseball.com. After playing through a broken thumb on his catching hand last year, he’s certainly battle-tested, and has been described as the “vocal, physical, and emotional leader” and the “heart and soul” of the UK baseball team.
Nidiffer had some interesting thoughts to share on UK’s upcoming SEC-opening series against Ole Miss:
“We’re a little ways into (the season) by now,” Nidiffer said. “Our goal is to keep getting better, and I think we’re doing that. The Ole Miss pitchers are going to come right at us, going to throw strikes. We can’t change our approach, though, we just have to battle every pitch. A lot of times, these SEC games are decided by just a run or two. We’ve got to fight every inning, every pitch to get that run.”
Included in the stable of the Mississippi pitching staff is their workhorse, All-American lefty Drew Pomeranz, who will start for the Rebels on Friday night. Even though there’s been plenty of hype surrounding the Cats’ opener, Nidiffer knows that it’s a long journey to the promised land of college baseball:
“We just have to take it one game at a time,” Nidiffer said. “You see teams all the time go from ‘on the bubble’ and then two weeks later, they’re at the bottom or even the top of the league.”
Another intriguing aspect of this weekend will be the first career SEC start by Freshman Taylor Rogers, who is scheduled to go on Saturday. As the leader of the pitching staff, Nidiffer has been impressed with Rogers so far:
“He’s comparable to Chris Rusin when he was a freshman; similar stuff,” Nidiffer said. “He’s done a great job so far. I think he’s ready. Obviously, these hitters are going to be more disciplined, so he’ll have to concentrate on throwing to location, and I’ll tell him that.”
When asked if he thought he was personally ready for SEC play, the laid-back native of Bristol, Tennessee simply chuckled and said in his signature southern drawl, “Sure am.”
