Exploring key personnel questions as Arizona preps for opener vs. Tennessee

The Arizona baseball team hosted its annual “Meet the Team” event Saturday afternoon at Hi Corbett Field. The Wildcats scrimmaged for seven innings as Team Blue took on Team Red. Here’s a look at four personnel developments as Arizona gears up for its opener Friday against Tennessee in Scottsdale:

Starting pitching

It was Jackson Kent on the mound for Team Blue, and Trevor Long on the mound for Team Red.

After three perfect innings tossed by Kent, Mason White took him deep to open the fourth. Kent, who was on the team last season but did not play, went five innings, allowing two runs on four hits to go along with seven strikeouts and zero walks. One of the aspects of pitching Arizona coach Chip Hale preaches the most is filling the strike zone, and that’s exactly what Kent did.

“He did a great job,” Hale said. “He has been mixing his pitches and he works fast, which helps the defense.”

Kent, a left-hander, had all of his pitches working Saturday afternoon.

“Everything felt really good,” Kent said. “I was commanding the cutter, the curveball. I was commanding every single pitch really well. Those seven strikeouts are all throwing fastballs and getting ahead in counts.”

After serving as Arizona’s closer for the majority of the second half of last season, Long is being looked at as a starter this season. After a few strong innings, the game got away from Long a bit in the fourth. But he was facing a lineup that will be very similar to what Hale will be running out opening day.

“He was facing the majority of the veteran hitters,” Hale said. “We wanted to see him against those guys. They made some adjustments against him. The first time around he did pretty well, but again he was throwing strikes. It wasn’t walks. It was more hits, so that’s just the way it goes.”

Hale said the staff is still working on who will be the starter vs. Tennessee.

Catching situation

With the departure of Daniel Susac, Arizona has big cleats to fill behind the plate. The general expectation is that it’ll be Tommy Splaine and Cameron LaLiberte battling it out. They’re both expected to see playing time.

“They’ll play probably evenly the first couple of weeks,” Hale said. “Then that thing kind of takes its own life. One of the two guys will probably run away with it.”

Last season Splaine made 47 starts as a true freshman, hitting .271 with two home runs, seven doubles and 24 RBIs. He also started seven of Arizona’s eight postseason games.

LaLiberte made eight starts and appeared in 18 games, hitting .303. He hit .429 with three doubles and seven runs scored across four starts in Pac-12 play. LaLiberte homered Saturday.

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No matter who takes control of the starting job, Hale confirmed he won’t have one of them catch every game, which Susac nearly did the past two seasons.

Opening in right field

One of the other big holes to fill is right field with the departure of Tanner O’Tremba. The expectation is that junior Emilio Corona, who blasted a home run on Saturday, will be the opening-day starter in right.

Corona spent the past couple of years at the University of Washington and Pima Community College before transferring to Arizona. He hit .346 across 55 games with 13 home runs and 60 RBIs with Pima last season.

“He has been swinging the bat well,” Hale said. “He is playing right field and doing a good job out there. He has got big power, so if he can just barrel some balls, he can hit them out of any part of the ballpark. It is something you really look for in a guy; obviously in a corner outfield, you want a guy who can slug a little bit.”

Veteran Tyler Casagrande also could see playing time in right.

Closer situation

Holden Christian and Long commanded the majority of the save chances last season for Arizona. Christian used up his eligibility, and, as mentioned, Long might start.

“I think early on, we’ll use a lot of guys,” Hale said. “Then as we get into Pac-12 play, we’ll figure out who is probably going to be our best guy for that. It could come from one of our starters, who knows.”

Derek Drees, who transferred to Arizona from Butler this offseason, logged one scoreless inning on Saturday, issuing two walks and recording one strikeout. He is one of the candidates to see some save chances after logging a 1.27 ERA across a career-high 17 appearances last season with four saves.

Chris Barraza, Eric Orloff, George Arias Jr., Aiden May and Brandon Zastrow are other pitchers who could see some save opportunities early on for Arizona.

UA pitching coach Dave Lawn also has noted that transfer Cam Walty could see some work on all three levels as a starter, middle reliever and closer.

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