- May 3, 2024
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Paul Ricci was cut from his middle-school baseball team. As a Matanzas senior, he fired three shutouts in a row.
It was a breezy, sunny afternoon Friday, March 18, at the Matanzas Pirates baseball practice. The team was warming up for live batting practice.
Pirates senior Paul Ricci stood tall on the mound and delivered pitch after pitch. Pitching coach and mentor Paul Lambert stood near the dugout. He was critical of Ricci, reminding him to extend his stride in his delivery. Always focus on the mechanics. Ricci nodded. He simply adjusted.
Whatever he has been doing, it is working. Ricci hurled three shutouts in a row this season, a feat unmatched in Flagler County.
But Ricci’s success hasn’t come easily.
He was cut from his middle school team in sixth grade, in Coventry, R.I.
The next year, his family relocated to Palm Coast. He played in the Flagler County Police Athletic League.
Ricci made the junior varsity squad at Matanzas High School as a freshman, and was called up to varsity toward the end of the season. He threw one inning that season in which he notched two strikeouts.
Ricci followed his varsity debut by making varsity as a sophomore.
In the Pirates’ second game of the season, against Pedro Menendez, Ricci got his first varsity start.
“I had a lot of confidence coming in from freshman year because of the success I had on JV,” Ricci said.
But the game didn’t go so well. Ricci gave up five runs in three innings.
“We ended up winning the game, but it still wasn’t good,” Ricci recalled Friday, March 18, through a grin as if that game still bothered him.
Ricci didn’t make another start his sophomore year.
Wake-up call
Ricci soon realized he wasn’t invincible, and wasn’t Roy Halladay, either.
“I always had success when I pitched growing up,” Ricci said. “During my sophomore year, I realized that I’m on varsity now and I’m hittable. It was a big wake-up call.”
Ricci came in to his junior season vying for a starting pitching job; however, he was competing against three seniors and a standout freshman.
Near the end of the season, Ricci got his first start. He threw a complete-game shutout.
At the end of his junior year, Ricci had only started three varsity games.
Work overload
The summer before he became a senior, Ricci began working out at the gym “religiously.”
“I was going about six or seven days a week,” Ricci said.
Despite advice to slow down, Ricci kept pushing. Until he got injured.
Ricci had bone disintegration in his right shoulder — his throwing arm — from too much work, and the joints were rubbing together instead of operating smoothly, he recalls.
His doctor told him what he didn’t want to hear: He was going to need a miracle to be able to play his senior season.
Four months after rehabbing, Ricci was able to begin throwing in December 2010, just weeks before his senior season would start.
Miracle begins.
Throwing zeros, trusting the defense
Three years from his two-strikeout debut against Pedro Menendez, Ricci has returned to form. In one three-start stretch this year, the right-hander threw 21 innings (three complete games), and didn’t allow a run. As of Monday, March 21, he boasted a 0.59 ERA while batters were hitting .176 against him.
Overall, Ricci has thrown 26 1/3 innings and has a 5-3 record with 20 strikeouts and 13 walks.
“The plan at the beginning of the season was to be ready for districts, which are in April,” Ricci said. “Everything else has been a bonus.”
Ricci attributes a lot of his success to his pitching coach and mentor, Paul Lambert. Though Lambert said Ricci deserves the credit.
“Paul has waited his turn … and has worked through his shoulder injury,” Lambert said. “I would do anything for that kid.”
In Ricci’s March 15 start, a district game against St. Augustine, he didn’t expect to make it the whole game, especially because he was pitching on three days’ rest.
“I told Coach Lambert I’d hopefully be able to go five innings and then I’ll leave it to the bullpen,” Ricci recalls. “But I like starting what I finish.”
Ricci only needed to throw 69 pitches to earn the complete-game shutout, stifling St. Augustine batters and limited the Yellow Jackets to just four hits. The win marked Ricci’s third-consecutive complete-game shutout this season.
“It’s easy to throw strikes and have confidence when the defense is playing great baseball behind me,” Ricci said.
Coach Don Apperson said the Pirates have played errorless baseball in Ricci’s three starts, adding: “He’s a phenomenal young man. He’s believed in everything his pitching coach tells him to do. He does what he’s told, and he doesn’t question anything.”
Ricci plans to keep taking baseball pitch by pitch, inning by inning, and game by game. Whether he’s starting or pitching in relief, he just wants to help the Pirates win.
After all, his composure and confidence help to settle the nerves of his teammates and coaches no matter the situation. Exactly what big-game pitchers do.
