USC pitcher Eli Jerzembeck is back from Tommy John surgery. His confidence grew stronger
To scroll through Eli Jerzembeck’s Instagram is to venture into an ironic wonderland, where you’re pretty sure everything is some inside joke but it’s not entirely clear.
It’s the most random mishmash of photos where it seems the goal is for others to think, (1) Why on Earth did he take this picture and (2) Why is he posting it? There are pictures of just the sky, pictures of video games, pictures of old magazine articles, selfies where he looks surprised that a photo was taken.
His social media presence makes it hard to tell whether he’s a baseball player or a sort of aspiring artist. At this notion, he smiles and chuckles.
“Life’s just very serious, so I like to take the things that people take serious very not serious,” Jerzembeck said. “Which I find social media. People like to spend time on it. I just post what I want, things I do.”
If we believe that an integral part of one’s confidence is the ability to not care how they’re perceived by others, then it starts to become clear why South Carolina coach Paul Mainieri — the 67-year-old who’s been around thousands of players — starts laughing when he talks about Jerzembeck.
“He’s certainly not lacking in self-confidence, I can assure you of that,” Mainieri said. “It’s definitely one you adjust to. He’s got an edge to him — and I like those kinds of kids. Bold kids.”
Jerzembeck comes from a baseball lineage. His father, Mike, played professional baseball for almost a decade and pitched a bit for the New York Yankees in the late 1990s. They have similar stature. They’re both righties. Even their windup and cadence on the mound look eerily similar.
Yet Mike Jerzembeck can’t believe how differently they behave on game days. On days he was slated to start, Mike was a ball of nervous energy. Do not approach him. Do not talk to him. Just stand pat until he was done pitching.
And then there’s Eli.
“Oh, he’s bouncing off walls the day he starts,” Mike said. “If you watched him run out the bullpen the other day, he was skipping. He’s hopping. He’s just happy. … He’s just like, ‘Oh I can’t wait. This will be fun.’ ”
Jerzembeck is like the kid who goes to an amusement park, rides a roller coaster once and becomes so enthralled that he begs his parents to go on it one more time, then one more time and once more. If something is that fun, why would you stop?
Which makes it almost incredible that Jerzembeck not only survived a full year without pitching but can speak about it without even a hint of disdain or frustration or sadness.
During his freshman season at South Carolina — after committing to the Gamecocks as a Top-20 right-handed pitcher in America — the Charlotte native took the mound 16 times, kept his ERA under 3.00 and recorded over a strikeout an inning. Stats-wise, it’s a best-case scenario from a freshman.
What most didn’t know is his elbow was hurting most of the year. He knew what that meant. Elbow injuries rarely just vanish. They often lead to Tommy John surgery and about a year of rehab.
Mike kept asking his son whether he wanted to say something to the coaches. Eli relented. He was just going to wait for his right UCL to tear — all while knowing he could still go on the mound once or twice a week and strike people out.
Sure enough, at the end of the season, the ligament finally popped. He was almost able to welcome the surgery, which perhaps explains how he says the year of rehab and recovery and constant physical therapy “flew by.”
“People think Tommy John is so hard because every day you’ve got to wake up and do something,” Jerzembeck said. “But in my head, I knew I was going to do that. It’s my job. I didn’t care. I didn’t look at it as a problem. It was just something I had to do every day.”
He almost treated his rehab like any game where you’re trying to win. Getting stronger was fun. Making progress was fun. Getting closer to pitching was fun.
“I kind of just fed into that,” he said.
Now, almost 650 days since he last pitched in a college game, Jerzembeck is in thew mix to start this weekend for South Carolina. Mainieri announced on Wednesday that Dylan Eskew will be Opening Day starter and Matthew Becker will take the mound on Saturday, which means it’s likely to be Jake McCoy or Jerzembeck to start on Sunday.
Jerzembeck’s certainly got the stuff to match up with the starters of the SEC; his fastball gained velocity after Tommy John surgery, now sitting in the mid-90s with a ridiculous curveball and solid changeup.
“If you grade his pitches,” Mike said, “they’re three above-average major league pitches.”
Of course, Mike admitted, it might take Eli a few starts to really get his feet back under him — heck, it’s been almost two years since his last appearance for the Gamecocks. But whether he starts on Sunday or any game thereafter, it will be a guarantee that no one believes in the man on the mound more than himself.
“He wants the ball. He wants the team to be on his shoulders,” Mainieri said. “Those are all good things.”
USC baseball early schedule
- Feb. 14 vs. Sacred Heart, 4 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Feb. 15 vs. Sacred Heart, 2 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Feb. 16 vs. Sacred Heart, Noon (SEC Network Plus)
- Feb. 18 at Winthrop, 4 p.m. (ESPN+)
- Feb. 19 vs. Queens, 4 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Feb. 21 vs. Milwaukee, 4 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Feb. 22 vs. Milwaukee, 2 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Feb. 23 vs. Milwaukee, 1:30 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
