Late in a game, when the eight short, low-high quarter notes made famous by Jimi Hendrix’s explosive guitar blast over the loudspeaker at Rocky Miller Park, you can tell he’s coming.
The right-handed Northwestern hurler, whose pitches can tail away from hitters on both sides of the plate, soon will toe the rubber. There he will confound opposing hitters with a delivery as varied and unorthodox as the guitar riff that accompanies him to the mound.
“Purple Haze” is what hitters hear as he takes the field. And this season, Purple Hayes is what they have seen.
Chris Hayes, that is.
“(He’s) been really a huge asset,” coach Paul Stevens said of the senior Hayes (2-0). “His ability recently to come in and shut down innings has been tremendous.”
Hayes’ ERA is a paltry 1.21 this year, a year after posting a 4.15 mark while splitting time between the bullpen and the field.
Now permanently a reliever, he has helped turn NU’s bullpen from a hindrance to a strength — its ERA this year is 3.43, down from 6.53 last year.
But the senior’s numbers aren’t his only attention-grabbers.
In his arsenal are a slider that moves away from righthanded hitters, a mid-80s fastball that falls away from lefties, a changeup, and a looping “Frisbee” pitch that starts at a righthanded batter and curves over the plate.
Also instrumental in Hayes’ success is a sidearm delivery — reminiscent of former Arizona Diamondbacks closer Byung-Hyun Kim — that he has been developing since his days at Lake Forest High School. There he threw mostly overhand — “like a normal person,” he joked — and occasionally switched to the sidearm “just to throw (hitters) off.”
But when he came to college, things had to change.
“I didn’t throw hard enough to throw over the top effectively all the time,” said Hayes, who since has switched mostly to sidearm except when he’s ahead in the count.
In addition to some long relief work, Hayes has established himself in a closer’s role. He leads the team and is tied for second in the Big Ten with three saves.
But despite Hayes’ success locking down wins, Stevens said he does not want to officially name Hayes NU’s closer.
“I don’t want to limit him,” Stevens said. “I’d like to think of Chris as a guy that can close a game, keep you in a ball game (or) shut down a team from having a big inning.”
Although both Hayes and Stevens said it’s too early to think about getting drafted, NU’s fireman said he hoped to go the way of Cats pitchers J.A. Happ and Dan Konecny, both of whom were selected in the 2004 amateur draft.
“That’s the ultimate goal,” he said. “I don’t really have any plans in terms of getting a real job, so I’d definitely like to be playing baseball this summer and in the future.”
Reach Patrick Dorsey at [email protected].
