Baseball: Frith’s approach pays off

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, May 14, 2013

As little as he’s been playing most of this season, Ragin’ Cajuns senior pitcher Ben Frith could have easily disengaged.

Some in his situation, UL baseball Tony Robichaux suggested, simply quit and leave.

Others, much worse, quit but stay.

“But Ben never chose that option,” Robichaux said, “and I respect him enormously for it.”

It’s a quintessential stick-with-it story.

“He could have hung it up,” Robichaux said, “but he kept working, and he did something he needed to do make himself get in the picture frame.”

What Frith did was reinvent himself not long ago as a submarine-style lefty, one whose new sidearm delivery has turned him into a potentially key member of the Cajun bullpen as UL’s 2013 season soon heads toward postseason play.

“He became valuable now, because they (opponent batters) can only see half the ball,” said Robichaux, whose 35-17 club ends the regular season with a three-game Sun Belt Conference series at UL Monroe that starts Thursday night, then hosts the Sun Belt tournament starting next week at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field. “Now you can mix and match, underneath and over the top.

“He starts dropping down and starts mastering underneath like that,” Robichaux added, “and now against lefties he’s almost unhittable.”

Proof of that came during Senior Day last Sunday at The Tigue, where Frith entered with UL down 6-0 and just two out in the top of the first inning in the third and final game of a Sun Belt series with conference-leader South Alabama.

The Westminster Christian Academy product wound up throwing the Cajuns’ final 6.1 innings, making his longest career appearance by far and allowing just one run and four hits as UL rallied to win 17-7 and pick up a much-needed victory in its push for an NCAA Regional bid.

Both Frith and others attributed the successful outing to his newfound pitch.

“He was just trying to do what he can for the ball team, and it’s really been working,” designated hitter Caleb Adams said. “I just thought it was really awesome to see him come out and do that.”

“I added the submarine dimension about a month ago, just to maybe help myself get on the field a little more,” Frith added. “That’s kind of helped me keep going – just knowing I’d probably get one opportunity somewhere to make a difference.”

It was during a mid-April practice – the Cajuns were in Arkansas, for a series with Arkansas-Little Rock – when Robichaux, also UL’s pitching coach, noticed Frith toying in the bullpen with the unorthodox delivery.

It’s something both of his sons – ex-Cajun Justin Robichaux, and current Cajun No. 1 starter Austin Robichaux, especially when he was in high school – have utilized at different times themselves.

But it wasn’t their father who taught them how to throw that way.

Rather, the brothers picked it up from ex-Cajun Danny Farquhar, who made his major-league debut with Toronto in 2011, appeared in three games with the Blue Jays that season and, after a series of transactions and a trade, now is with Triple-A Tacoma in the Seattle Mariners organization.

And now it’s Frith, who transferred to UL from Marshall, who is pitching from down under.

“Anytime you drop down, you cut the ball in half,” Robichaux said. “You saw what it did to South Alabama. They saw the ball good all weekend off a lot of different arms, but they didn’t see the ball good off of (Frith).

“When you drop down … if you keep it down, the hitter has two choices. He just sees the top part, and he can roll it, or he can drop and try to lift it – and either one of them is in the pitcher’s favor.

“He’s getting better at throwing his breaking underneath also, to where he’s not just fastball,” Robichaux added. “He can mix it now. … So he’s a huge viable candidate (to come of out of pen) for us.”

Frith threw 0.2 innings of scoreless relief in a 6-4 non-conference loss at Houston on April 30, and he effort against South Alabama – in just his sixth appearance of the season – may have earned him a call or two down the stretch.

Not knowing when he’ll hear his name again can’t be easy.

But that sure beats what’s kept him busiest this season – shagging balls during batting practice, something Robichaux called a “crummy job” that Frith nevertheless takes as conscientiously as his infrequent duties on the mound.

“I’ve got so much respect for him, because he could have … (quit-and-stayed),” Robichaux said. “He could have done that and rode it out, but he didn’t.

“His attitude has never changed. No matter how much you pitch him, don’t pitch him – he’s still running down fly balls in the outfield full-speed, every day, in b.p.”

While biding his time waiting for the next opportunity, Frith would do it no other way.

“You don’t want to be that guy that quits and stays. Nobody likes that guy,” he said. “But, more than that, I don’t need that motivation. … I just had to keep staying ready.”