Community College Baseball: Winning an art to OCC’s Vidrio
Art Vidrio doesn’t much care what you call it, or how you might describe it. He doesn’t bother with comparisons, compliments, nicknames, adjectives or, for that matter, opinions, one way or the other.
The Orange Coast College sophomore knows what he can and can’t do and he knows how to somehow make that combination work. With mind-numbing consistency, though without awe-inspiring velocity, he has somewhat stealthily amassed one of the greatest pitching careers in school history.
He has helped the Pirates collect one state title, one mythical national championship, a share of one conference title and been named state tournament MVP. And yet college recruiters, let alone major league scouts might not be able to correctly spell his name. Heck, OCC misspelled it (Vidro) his whole freshman season.
With 15 career wins, including an 11-1 record in his last 17 starts dating back to winning all four postseason starts in 2014, he has tied former major league standout Dan Quisenberry for the No. 8 spot on the OCC career victories list. He has won as many or more games than 18 OCC teams compiled in a season and, including four varsity seasons at Orange Lutheran High, he is 30-7 on the bump since 2009.
OCC Coach John Altobelli and teammates and opponents alike, have clearly taken note.
“I think he is going to go down as one of the better, if not the best pitcher in Orange Coast College history,” Altobelli said of the 5-foot-11, 205-pound bounce-back from UC Santa Barbara, who will start Friday when the Pirates (21-15) open the Southern California Regional playoffs with the first of a best-of-three series at Long Beach City College on Friday at 2 p.m.
“Now how far that might take him is to be determined,” Altobelli said. “But as far as pitching here at OCC, he has had more bulldog appearances and more big wins than I think anybody I’ve had in my 23 years here. Now Mike Mayne [Altobelli’s predecessor who was at the helm for 15 seasons] might argue, because I’m sure he had some pretty good guys, but as far as this program and what [Vidrio] has done, I don’t know if anybody has done as much as he has.”
How far Vidrio will go — he said he is receiving recruiting interest from NAIA schools and Division I programs — figures to be the maximum amalgamation of his will and his skill. And if the future is anything like his time at OCC, the former might have more to do with it than the latter.
“He is very confident and he believes in what he can do,” Altobelli said of Vidrio, who is 7-1 this season with a 2.96 earned-run average, and 15-4 with a 2.61 ERA in 28 career appearances for the Pirates. “He knows what he has, which is critical. A lot of kids think they throw 95 mph when they actually throw 85 mph. Art knows what bullets he has in his gun and he works with it the best he can. He understands that he has to pitch away, mix pitches, keep the ball down and work ahead. It’s the whole recipe for success for any pitcher, but he believes in it and does it.”
Though he has developed a reputation as a big-game pitcher — including allowing one run and seven hits in 8 2/3 innings to help the Pirates defeat Saddleback, 2-1, in the regular-season finale to clinch sole possession of third place in the Orange Empire Conference — Vidrio says that may be a bit of misnomer.
“I’ve always played on very competitive teams and I guess that has kind of molded me into a guy who thrives in those situations,” Vidrio said. “But I don’t really look for those moments to happen to me. And to me, the way I pitch in the playoffs is the way I pitch all the time. I hold myself to a high standard all the time.”
While his standards are lofty, his most effective pitches frequent the lower part of the strike zone. And, he points out, they are usually darting away from the arc of the batter’s swing.
“My fastball cuts and moves 90% of the time, no matter where I throw it,” Vidrio said. “Sometimes my catcher will give me a look, thinking I’ve crossed him up. I tell him I don’t know what happened. But [the natural movement] is definitely an advantage.”
What has happened all but once in his 28 OCC appearances, is that Vidrio has surrendered four or fewer earned runs. In 19 of those games, he allowed three earned runs or fewer and the lone exception was a five-run output in four innings of a 15-9 loss to Cypress on April 7. The 13 hits he allowed that day, coming on the heels of back-to-back complete-game victories that included a one-hit shutout of Riverside, are the only time he has allowed double-digit hits as a Pirate.
“If I’m not at my best, I find a way to compete and work for my team,” Vidrio said. “I know that if I have a bad outing, that’s not me.”
Altobelli has come to expect a quality outing from his most-trusted arm.
“He has had plenty of wins in which he didn’t have good stuff, but he battled through it and his defense and/or offense picked him up,” Altobelli said. “He was 4-3 at one point last season and we moved him to the bullpen. But he was a dude for us when we really needed it [last year]. And he hasn’t missed a beat this year, stepping up to be our No. 1 guy.”
And, Altobelli said, Vidrio’s positivity is infectious.
“Some guys are just winners and other guys have a black cloud over their head,” Altobelli said. “But it seems like when Artie is pitching, it’s sunshine all the time out there. And it helps everyone in the program knowing he is out there, because they know he is going to give us a quality start.”