Oh, what a relief: Having Price, Vannelle back in bullpen has meant so much to Wildcats

They didn’t have to come back.

Preston Price and Vince Vannelle were seniors a year ago. Last spring was supposed to be their last go-round as Arizona Wildcats.

The pandemic changed that equation. The season was canceled after 15 games. Seniors had the option to return. But pro baseball also was a possibility for Price and Vannelle, even with a truncated draft. MLB clubs are always on the lookout for relief pitchers who can get outs.

Amid the uncertainty of March 2020, UA coach Jay Johnson and his staff began re-recruiting key veterans. Vannelle had several conversations with pitching coach Nate Yeskie, who advised him to return. Vannelle’s father agreed. Vannelle listened and valued the input of the “power figures” in his life.

He decided to play one more season at Arizona. So did Price, his fellow right-hander. For the most part, it has worked out exactly as they had hoped.

Arizona won the Pac-12 Conference. The Wildcats are the No. 5 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. The UA hosts Grand Canyon in the Tucson Regional on Friday night.

The Cats wouldn’t be where they are without Price and Vannelle’s mentorship and contributions from the back of the bullpen. The two have combined for six wins and 10 saves. Each has an ERA below 3.00. They have struck out 68 batters in 47 1/3 innings.

“Their on-the-mound contribution, you can quantify it ... but you can’t,” Johnson said Thursday. “It does so much for teams when you close out close games, and nobody’s been more important in that than Preston and Vince.”

Johnson always has believed that the final nine outs are the hardest ones to get. So, in a sense, they count as more.

Having Price and Vannelle in the bullpen (when healthy) has enabled Arizona to tap one, the other or both to finish games. The Wildcats posted a 32-3 record during the regular season when leading after six innings.

“The finality of knowing that this would be their last go at it here at the University of Arizona heightened their competitiveness,” Yeskie said. “It pushed them to work harder. ... Those guys are doing a good job of kind of pushing the sun back up in the sky and seeing if they can enjoy the light a little bit longer.”

Season of comebacks

Arizona had a chance to clinch a share of the Pac-12 title in Game 3 of its series at Oregon State on May 23. The Wildcats rallied from a 5-1 deficit to tie the score in the top of the eighth. After Vannelle worked a scoreless bottom half, Arizona took the lead.

The Beavers put a runner on base via an infield single and advanced him to second with a sacrifice bunt. Vannelle struck out Matthew Gretler on three pitches. Joe Casey then worked the count full, fouling off four offerings in the process. Finally, Vannelle fanned him with a blazing, up-and-in fastball.

Vannelle described it as “the best win I’ve been a part of.” The sequence of events reaffirmed the call he made last summer.

“I 100% made the right decision to come back,” Vannelle said a few days after the comeback win at OSU.

It also showed how far Vannelle had come over the previous two years in an aspect of athletics that only recently has become a mainstream topic.

Vannelle credits much of his success at Arizona — 11 saves and a 2.87 ERA in two-plus seasons after transferring from Florida Southwestern State College — to his work with UA baseball’s mental coach. Vannelle first began speaking with Karlene Pick after the Wildcats’ previous trip to Corvallis in 2019.

Vannelle faced one batter in the seventh inning of a tie game. He threw five pitches. Only one was a strike. His curveball was landing well short of the plate.

“The fans were going crazy, and mentally I just, like, shut down,” Vannelle said. “I’ve never experienced that in my life.”

Vannelle and Pick talked about staying focused on the present and remaining aggressive. He has continued to utilize that resource the past two seasons.

“If you’re not fully invested in the mental training and mental aspects,” Vannelle said, “then you’re kind of wasting your time.”

Late-inning relief requires a heightened level of mental fortitude. “You almost have to have this amnesia approach,” Johnson said.

Vannelle said he’s been “a little disappointed” in his overall performance this season. A handful of outings haven’t gone his way, including the April 13 game against Grand Canyon in which Vannelle allowed the winning home run in the 10th inning.

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“But at the end of the day,” he said, “we’re Pac-12 champions.”

Vannelle earned a win (five) or save (seven) in almost a third of Arizona’s 40 victories.

Price’s poise

It is perhaps the most underrated aspect of the Wildcats’ historic season that they continued to win while Price was on the shelf.

Price did not appear in a game between April 10 and May 27 because of an arm injury. Arizona went 20-7 over that span.

Despite the Wildcats’ excellence in his absence, a strong case could be made that Price — who returned May 28 — was their most valuable player before he got hurt.

Price repeatedly entered games in high-leverage situations and invariably pitched Arizona out of them. He has allowed only 3 of 22 inherited baserunners to score.

Twice Price inherited bases-loaded situations and didn’t allow a single run. He came in with the bases packed and nobody out in the sixth inning against Oklahoma on March 5. He proceeded to strike out the next three Sooners swinging to preserve a 6-1 lead.

“The word that comes to mind is poise,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t matter the situation. ... He stays in plan.”

Like Vannelle, Price has come a long way over the past two years. Like many of his fellow pitchers, Price struggled in 2019. He posted an 8.31 ERA in 13 appearances and didn’t have a secure spot on the travel squad.

Although doubt crept in at times, Price continued to believe in and push himself. He followed the advice of his father, Roger, a former running back at BYU:

“Just keep going, no matter what happens. Always find the positive.”

Yeskie, who joined the UA staff in July 2019, tweaked Price’s mechanics. They worked to refine his slider, which has become a devastating out pitch.

Price posted a 2.45 ERA in eight appearances last year. He has registered a 2.41 ERA, a 1.13 WHIP and three saves this season. He has 32 strikeouts in 18 2/3 innings.

Johnson saw Price’s potential when he pitched for Cathedral Catholic High School in San Diego. Price was committed to Johnson at Nevada. Price switched to Arizona, which always had been his dream school, the day Johnson was hired here in June 2015.

Johnson recalled scouting Price and being amazed by the velocity and break of his slider.

“I was standing right behind the plate,” Johnson said. “I couldn’t figure it out. Is that really that good a pitch?”

It’s that good — so nasty that UA outfielder Mac Bingham, who has faced Price countless times in practice, didn’t want to talk about it.

“It’s too dirty,” Bingham said.

But when it comes to Price and Vannelle’s value to the squad — as pitchers and leaders — their teammates can’t say enough.

“Everyone just gravitates towards them,” left-hander Garrett Irvin said. “To have those guys back and just lead us and show us what Arizona pitching is ... it’s definitely a blessing.”