Some excerpts:
It was the hamstring injury that reverberated around college baseball. Just four games into top MLB Draft prospect JJ Wetherholt’s junior season, the West Virginia star suffered a Grade 3 hamstring strain scoring a run on a wild pitch against Stetson on Feb. 19. The injury would cost Wetherholt a significant part of the season, but when it happened Steven Rosier feared it was a much worse injury.
“I actually thought he’d blown out his knee,” said Rosier, the Mountaineers’ associate director of athletic training. “When I got to him on the field, I said, ‘Hey, what happened?’ And he said, ‘My hamstring blew out’. I said, ‘Thank God,’ and he looked at me like, ‘Are you kidding me right now?’ But I was like, ‘If you just saw what I saw, you’d understand why I’m glad that that’s all it is.’”
A season-ending knee injury it wasn’t, but it was still a significant injury and one that Wetherholt and Rosier would work closely together to rehab over the next seven weeks. Midseason injuries are difficult to return from, but Wetherholt’s rehab took on added urgency because of what was at stake, both for him and the program. Wetherholt entered the season as one of a handful of players in the conversation to go 1-1 in the 2024 draft. And the Mountaineers were looking to build off an appearance in the NCAA Regionals in 2023 and establish themselves as a real presence in the national college baseball conversation.
“It was all over Twitter within 10 minutes of it happening and before that game was over, I had like 50 text messages from people that I know across the baseball world wondering what was going on,” Rosier said over the phone last week.
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Despite those challenges, he collected three hits in his first game back, against Kansas on April 5. He struggled a bit over the next few games but found his groove by the end of April and finished the season with a .331/.472/.589 line in 36 games.
West Virginia finished the regular season in fourth place in the Big 12, but with Wetherholt back in the lineup, the Mountaineers advanced out of Regionals and made the program’s first Super Regional. They eventually fell to North Carolina in that round.
“By the time we hit the last weekend of the year and Big 12 tournament, he was playing free, and he wasn’t thinking about (the injury) and he was moving and running around at full speed,” Rosier said. “I can’t say enough good things about the way he handled the whole process. It was really impressive.”
Wetherholt felt he was just hitting his stride physically when the season came to an end.
“I wanted to keep playing with the guys, but the game doesn’t really care how you feel sometimes,” Wetherholt said of West Virginia’s exit from the postseason in the Super Regionals.
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Wetherholt says one player at the combine was shocked when he met him and realized those hitting numbers were being generated from a smaller frame.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, dude, I don’t look crazy but I can swing a little bit,’” he said with a laugh.
Though his junior season didn’t play out exactly according to plan, he looks back at his time at West Virginia with pride. He came to Morgantown with the goal of putting the WVU program on the map nationally. He left having seen it take a big step in postseason play.
“It means a lot to me because it’s something I wanted to do for the fans and the state and the university,” he said. “It’s a testament to the coaches there and to my teammates who have been on my side for the longest time.”
It was the hamstring injury that reverberated around college baseball. Just four games into top MLB Draft prospect JJ Wetherholt’s junior season, the West Virginia star suffered a Grade 3 hamstring strain scoring a run on a wild pitch against Stetson on Feb. 19. The injury would cost Wetherholt a significant part of the season, but when it happened Steven Rosier feared it was a much worse injury.
“I actually thought he’d blown out his knee,” said Rosier, the Mountaineers’ associate director of athletic training. “When I got to him on the field, I said, ‘Hey, what happened?’ And he said, ‘My hamstring blew out’. I said, ‘Thank God,’ and he looked at me like, ‘Are you kidding me right now?’ But I was like, ‘If you just saw what I saw, you’d understand why I’m glad that that’s all it is.’”
A season-ending knee injury it wasn’t, but it was still a significant injury and one that Wetherholt and Rosier would work closely together to rehab over the next seven weeks. Midseason injuries are difficult to return from, but Wetherholt’s rehab took on added urgency because of what was at stake, both for him and the program. Wetherholt entered the season as one of a handful of players in the conversation to go 1-1 in the 2024 draft. And the Mountaineers were looking to build off an appearance in the NCAA Regionals in 2023 and establish themselves as a real presence in the national college baseball conversation.
“It was all over Twitter within 10 minutes of it happening and before that game was over, I had like 50 text messages from people that I know across the baseball world wondering what was going on,” Rosier said over the phone last week.
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Despite those challenges, he collected three hits in his first game back, against Kansas on April 5. He struggled a bit over the next few games but found his groove by the end of April and finished the season with a .331/.472/.589 line in 36 games.
West Virginia finished the regular season in fourth place in the Big 12, but with Wetherholt back in the lineup, the Mountaineers advanced out of Regionals and made the program’s first Super Regional. They eventually fell to North Carolina in that round.
“By the time we hit the last weekend of the year and Big 12 tournament, he was playing free, and he wasn’t thinking about (the injury) and he was moving and running around at full speed,” Rosier said. “I can’t say enough good things about the way he handled the whole process. It was really impressive.”
Wetherholt felt he was just hitting his stride physically when the season came to an end.
“I wanted to keep playing with the guys, but the game doesn’t really care how you feel sometimes,” Wetherholt said of West Virginia’s exit from the postseason in the Super Regionals.
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Wetherholt says one player at the combine was shocked when he met him and realized those hitting numbers were being generated from a smaller frame.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, dude, I don’t look crazy but I can swing a little bit,’” he said with a laugh.
Though his junior season didn’t play out exactly according to plan, he looks back at his time at West Virginia with pride. He came to Morgantown with the goal of putting the WVU program on the map nationally. He left having seen it take a big step in postseason play.
“It means a lot to me because it’s something I wanted to do for the fans and the state and the university,” he said. “It’s a testament to the coaches there and to my teammates who have been on my side for the longest time.”
