Electric Stuff

This story originally appeared in the 13.8 Issue of GoDuke the Magazine -- March 2022.

Chris Pollard says he has three goals for his Duke baseball team.

“One is to graduate our guys and do well in the classroom. Two is to do things the right way around this campus. Three is to be still playing baseball in June because if you’re playing baseball in June, you’re playing in the NCAA Tournament.”

Most Duke student-athletes do well in the classroom and do things the right way around campus. But playing baseball in June? That has not been a regular thing.

Pollard is in his 10th season at Duke. Only Jack Coombs (24), Ace Parker (14) and Steve Traylor (12) had longer tenures.

Coombs and Parker coached when Duke was a national power. But after Parker took the Blue Devils to the 1961 College World Series, Duke went on a postseason hiatus that lasted for over half a century. Eight coaches succeeded Parker at Duke and eight saw every one of their seasons end in ACC play.

Pollard was brought in to change that. He would be the first to acknowledge that Duke has given him resources his predecessors did not have and he would be the first to credit recruiting coordinator Josh Jordan with helping to elevate Duke’s talent base.

But Pollard is the guy who has maximized those resources and that talent.

Duke has made the NCAA Tournament in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021 and most certainly would have in 2020 had that tournament not been canceled by covid.

But there’s a price for success. Duke lost five players in the MLB draft, including center fielder Joey Loperfido (.374 batting average last season), right fielder Peter Matt (15 home runs), standout shortstop Ethan Murray and Mike Rothenberg, a three-year starter at catcher.

Pollard is more than okay with losing players like that. Sending players to the pros makes it easier to recruit the next class of players.

“Guys know you can come here and get a great education and you play in the ACC,” he says. “But you’re also going to have an opportunity if you develop to go on and play at the next level.”

This year’s freshman class is ranked in the top 10 by Baseball America magazine and the website D1 Baseball.

“I do believe that the type of player we’re on in the last two or three years is very different than the type of player we were on when I first got here,” Pollard maintains.

Shortstop Alex Mooney is the highest-ranked player from last year’s prep class to show up on a college campus. Catcher Alex Wu and outfielder Devin Obee have been high-impact players as freshmen.

The cupboard isn’t entirely bare of veteran talent. First baseman Chris Crabtree, third baseman Graham Pauley and versatile Chad Knight are top-tier talents. Outfielder R.J. Schreck (18 homers last season) is a preseason All-American.

And Pollard may have more talented arms than he’s ever had at Duke. But many of them are young and in need of seasoning.

“I like the way some of our young guys have taken a step forward,” Pollard said in the preseason, specifically mentioning Jonathan Santucci and Ryan Higgins.

But there’s one area where Duke isn’t going to need freshmen arms.

College baseball is played out over a string of weekend series — Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Friday starter is the team’s ace, the player tasked with going against the other team’s best and giving his team its best chance to capture that series.

Duke thinks it has its guy.

Marcus Johnson is a 6-6, 200-pound junior, a preseason All-America selection by D1 Baseball and Perfect Game. The right-hander is a native of Fontana, Calif.

How did he get to Durham?

Not surprisingly, Johnson also played basketball growing up. But he says he’s better at baseball and “when it came to my future, baseball was definitely the route I needed to take.”

He gave up basketball prior to his senior year at Etiwanda High School in Rancho Cucamonga.

By then Johnson was already committed to Duke. He says he and Duke first crossed paths at a tournament in Georgia the summer between his freshman and sophomore seasons.

“We kind of connected.”

He was everything Duke was looking for. Obviously, he had big-time talent. He was ranked among the top 500 players in the country as a senior. He was a superb student, an AP Scholar and a member of the Beta Club.

“I was only really looking at schools that offered the best of both worlds, like Duke does, where the baseball and the degree are on the same playing field. I never really thought about going to anywhere that’s not that caliber. My preference was definitely to go to for the strong academic piece and make a 40-year decision instead of a four-year decision.”

And he was willing to pack his bags and hit the road.

“I think I always saw college as an experience of getting away from home,” Johnson says. “I think it’s going to serve me better in life. If you want to play professional baseball you’ve got to get used to being away from home. I never really thought of being close to home. I wanted to play against different kids, to experience something new.”

Johnson had a solid fall 2019 and seemed poised to be a big part of Duke’s loaded 2020 staff.

But he only saw the mound for 2.1 innings before the pandemic shut down the season.

Johnson said he used the opportunity to get better.

“As a team it was pretty frustrating, just because we all knew we had something pretty special going. My development, I think that it kind of pushed me forward. I think that a lot of the kids who are standing out now are kids who took that covid year seriously when they had time at home. Using that summer to get stronger, work on certain things, get my body where it needs to go and have a successful sophomore year was huge.”

Still, as pitching coach Chris Gordon notes, “He just didn’t have any experience and we needed a guy (in the bullpen) who could throw strikes.”

The decision was made to send Johnson to the bullpen as a sophomore.

It was a big success. Johnson and Jimmy Loper shared the closer role. Johnson led the team with 30 appearances, five wins and seven saves.

Johnson says he is thankful for the time spent in the bullpen, “how to deal with adversity, how to recover and make sure my arm is in shape to go every other day. I wouldn’t trade that for the world.”

He says he still misses the adrenaline rush of coming in late to save a game.

But Duke recruited Johnson to be a starter, Johnson wants to be a starter and there was a weekend spot available after Jack Carey was drafted and signed professionally.

Gordon gives a coach’s assessment of Johnson’s strengths.

“He’s really good at processing information. He doesn’t need me to prod him or push him along. He’s constantly wanting to get better.”

And he has electric stuff.

“The slider is really, really good. It works really well against lefthanders. His changeup is really good. He can throw it right on right. He did a really good job this summer of making the metrics of that fastball play up. He’s a true three-pitch mix to both sides.”

Johnson agrees that his slider is his out pitch but acknowledges that he needs to be able to beat people with other pitches.

Johnson says one of his biggest adjustments from bullpen to starter is learning how to go through a lineup twice or three times.

Gordon says much of that adjustment takes place between innings.

“In between innings we talk about what has a guy seen and what has he swung at and what has he put in play. We’re constantly evaluating.”

But it’s not just quality stuff. Gordon says of Johnson that “the moment is never too much for him.”

Johnson agrees. “I’m up there and I’m always going to be confident. My compete factor is definitely something that I’ve worked on in college and something that I’m honing in on now. I feel like I’m going to be more prepared and want it more than the guy in the box. That’s huge with being a Friday guy. If you don’t believe in you, you’re probably in trouble.”

Johnson is one of four co-captains, the only junior in that group, a sign of the respect he’s earned from his coaches and teammates. He’s majoring in sociology and says he wants to remain in the game once he hangs up his spikes for the last time, perhaps as a general manager.

He’s draft eligible this year and expects to go pro. But Pollard has made it clear that making it to the College World Series is one box his program hasn’t checked and Marcus Johnson needs to be a big part of ending that particular drought.

Related News

Related Videos

Duke information