March 18, 2018
By Mandy Bell, GoPSUSports.com student staff writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - After missing the 2017 season due to injury and a slow start in 2018, redshirt freshman Dante Biasi proved exactly why he was worth the wait in Sunday's 8-6 loss to NJIT.
The Nittany Lions have been waiting to work Biasi into the starting rotation since he joined his older brother, Sal, on the Penn State pitching staff in 2017. The younger Biasi was forced to watch from the dugout throughout what would have been his freshman season after undergoing surgery. Now, he is getting his first action at the collegiate level.
"My arm feels great [now], so there's nothing really wrong there," Biasi said. "It's just getting experience. This is my first time facing college-level hitters, so I'm pretty happy with where I'm at right now, but there's still a lot to work on and get better by the end of the season."
It's tough for Nittany Lion fans to not have high hopes for the young starter because of the success his older brother had in his three years at Penn State. Sal posted a career 3.41 ERA while recording an impressive 185 strikeouts in 174 innings pitched.
Not only are expectations high because of his brother's legacy, but the younger Biasi proved his talents prior to college, getting drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 22nd round of the 2016 MLB Entry Draft. Despite having the option to become a professional player straight out of high school, Biasi decided to follow his brother and play at Penn State, but had to take his first year off for his surgery.
Biasi finally took the mound for the first time in the third game of the 2018 season. In his collegiate debut at Elon, the left-hander carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning giving Penn State fans a taste of what could be to come. Biasi then struggled through his second outing lasting just 1/3 of an inning against St. John's before going 3 2/3 innings against UC Santa Barbara in his third start. Because the lefty is fresh off of surgery, the Penn State coaching staff has had to be careful with Biasi's pitch count.
"What we do with him, just like we do with everybody else, is we kind of monitor what his velocity is at, how his stuff is," Penn State head coach Rob Cooper said. "You know if all of the sudden he really drops off, that's good sign that he's kind of hit the wall physically."
He may have had to come out early in the first few starts of the season, but Sunday, Biasi was in a groove. The lefty was dominate on the mound, pitching six scoreless innings of one-hit baseball.
"It felt good [to get that deep into the game]," Biasi said. "Me, [junior catcher Ryan] Sloni[ger] and [pitching] Coach [Josh] Newman worked all week on just developing my secondary stuff. I was able to throw that for strikes, so kind of made it easier on myself. We just got after it and competed out there."
On top of logging his first quality start of the season, Biasi recorded seven strikeouts, allowing just one walk on the afternoon.
"Couple of my starts before, I couldn't really throw my off-speed for strikes," Biasi said. "Today we went with a lot of curveballs early for strikes and I was just getting ahead with that and pitching off that. So, I really think Coach Newman and Sloni[ger] did a great job calling the game and we just kept going with what was working."
"I think the biggest thing for him today was his fastball command. He was ahead of everybody," Sloniger said. "All his secondary stuff was good, but he was able to locate and he was ahead of guys. It makes it a lot easier to pitch like that."
The Nittany Lions are not looking to rush Biasi into the season, however, once the lefty is at full strength, there's certainly evidence he could spend much more time on the mound.
"Let me make sure you guys understand why he's had three starts," Cooper said. "This kid was rehabbing at this time last year. I want you to understand how hard this kid is working. The fact that he was able to go six innings today and, based on where he was last year at this time, he is well ahead of schedule."