A Lesson Around Every Curve
Pitcher Josh Sborz’s time playing baseball at Virginia taught him valuable lessons
Picking a college can be one of the most challenging choices a kid can make. It can be stressful trying to find the right fit. But for Josh Sborz, it was not as difficult as it is for many.
After his sophomore year of high school, Sborz, a relief pitcher for the Oklahoma City Dodgers, toured the Grounds at the University of Virginia.
He soon decided to attend UVa.
“I visited Virginia and it just stuck with me right off the bat,” Sborz said. “I knew going to Virginia, if baseball never worked out, I would have something to fall back on. It’s a great school. And the baseball program is obviously very good.”
This was a decision that helped him realize his full potential.
The architect of the baseball program at Virginia is Brian O’Connor. Since taking over in 2004, O’Connor has done nothing but succeed. He has brought the Cavaliers to 14 NCAA Tournaments, holds the school record for wins, and captured their first College World Series championship in 2015.
However, UVa. impressed Sborz, 24, beyond the banners and victories.
During his visit to Virginia in the summer of 2010, he was struck by how up front and honest the coaches were about how they run the program.
“They said they were going to be tough, they were going to yell,” a reminiscing Sborz said. “That’s how it was, you have to listen and be respectful to everyone. I committed quickly after I visited.”
Sborz initially saw this toughness when UVa. made it to Omaha, Neb., the site of the College World Series, for the first time in 2009. Back then, he didn’t know much about the UVa. program. Sborz quickly recognized why O’Connor’s teams stood out: they carried themselves with respect and confidence — traits he admired.
But first Sborz had to gain confidence. He would be adding the strenuous rigors of academic life at UVa., while playing baseball at such a high level.
“Adding [academics], you have to learn time management,” Sborz said. “You have to grow up really quickly. If you don’t, you’re going to be out of there. You get bad grades, you don’t play. It’s also [learning] stress management too.”
Sborz realized that he would be learning from more than just his textbooks, because he had to apply these lessons on the field.
There, Sborz had a mentor in pitching coach Karl Kuhn. Hired as an assistant coach in 2004, Kuhn has established himself as one of the premier pitching coaches in the collegiate ranks.
Kuhn is so good because he can help his pitchers — especially the young ones — fight through adversity.
“When you go to a big program you know you have the stuff for it,” Sborz said. “But the mental side of it, for high schoolers, most of them are pretty weak. They go through high school just dominating. When you get in the trenches and start struggling, you have to know how to get out of it and continue working hard.”
One of the ways Kuhn gets his pitchers to keep pushing is his now-famous mound visits.
Kuhn’s visits involve three components that make an impact, as described in an interview with the podcast “Top Coach” in 2014. First, he always puts his arm on the pitcher’s shoulders. This tells the pitcher that Kuhn is with him, that they are in this together. Second is close proximity, putting the focus on Kuhn. Last, and most important, is “primary recency.” This means that the listener will hear more effectively the first and last things you say and less likely to remember the middle part of the conversation. So Kuhn always starts the mound visit with a question and finishes it with a goal.
This creates positive reinforcement and reduces stress. Talking to “Top Coach” in 2014, Kuhn says, “When you go to the mound, you can’t add fuel to the fire.”
Learning these lessons from both school and Kuhn helped Sborz perform on the diamond as a freshman — a tough task to accomplish in a power-five Division I program.
During his first year, Sborz appeared in a team-high 30 games (10th most in UVa. history) as a reliever and had a 1.98 ERA over 50.0 innings with two saves.
The following season, 2014, Sborz was asked to become a full-time starter — a role that he was excited to fill.
“You get to start for your team,” Sborz said. “That’s the first thing, it’s always around the team and how to serve the team. I just tried to go out there and get outs.”
Sborz collected plenty of outs.
In his first career weekend start against UNC-Wilmington in 2014, Sborz threw six shutout innings while not allowing a hit. In addition, he did not allow a runner to reach second base. But more importantly, the team won, 7–2.
Sborz registered a 2.92 ERA over 15 starts and 77.0 innings in his second year. He fanned 72 while holding opposing hitters to a .210 average.
Transitioning to a starter and having instant success was not a surprise. In high school, the hard-throwing right-hander from McLean, Va., would start one game and come in to close the next one, helping him develop a strategy for a successful start.
“In the pen you have to learn to compartmentalize things and take it bit by bit,” Sborz said. “I tried to carry that over to starting.”
So whether Sborz gave up a home run or struck out a batter, he would focus on the moment and not let previous results control the outcome of the present.
That mindset also proved beneficial when Virginia reached the pinnacle of college baseball: Omaha.
Virginia’s 2014 campaign was one of the best in school history. They won 53 games, second-most in program history, and were the №3 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The Cavaliers did not have much trouble getting to Omaha. They went 3–0 in the Charlottesville Regional and then beat Maryland two out of three games to win the Charlottesville Super Regional.
Next stop was TD Ameritrade Park.
After outdueling Ole Miss twice and a 15-inning triumph against TCU in pool play, Virginia found itself in the Championship Series versus Vanderbilt University.
UVa. lost Game 1, 9–8, but bounced back to win Game 2, 7–2.
In the deciding third game, runs were scarce. Down, 2–0, in the sixth inning, the Cavaliers scored two runs to tie the game. However, two innings later, the Commodores scored the winning run in the eighth and took Game 3, 3–2, to win the championship.
Losing is not fun. But it would be a tough yet valuable lesson for Sborz and the Cavaliers.
The following year, Virginia battled through a plethora of injuries during the regular season and made it to Omaha for a second straight year.
After being named the №3 seed in the Lake Elsinore Regional, the Cavaliers went 3–0 and faced a familiar foe in the 2015 Super Regional: Maryland.
Virginia beat the Terrapins in two games, 5–3 and 5–4, to advance.
In pool play, Virginia defeated Arkansas once and Florida twice to set up a rematch against Vanderbilt in the championship series.
And once again, the Cavaliers found themselves in a hole following a Game 1 loss, 5–1.
“When your back’s up against the wall like we were, you’re just a little more prepared and relaxed about it the next [time],” Sborz said.
He was right. Virginia went on to win the next two games, 3–0, and, 4–2, to capture the school’s first College World Series title.
Sborz was named the Most Outstanding Player at the 2015 NCAA College World Series.
“Bringing it back it was an honor,” Sborz said. “Leaving as a junior and finishing my career out with a championship was special. It’s still hard to gather words and describe because it was just so crazy how it happened.”
Overall, Sborz pitched in 14 career NCAA Tournament games — the team won 12 of those contests — and had an ERA of 0.51 in 35.0 innings with 36 strikeouts.
Dominating under the bright lights as Sborz did came as he learned to control the situation, whether he entered in the fifth inning or the ninth.
“I felt like I had to take over the games and make it my mentality that no one is coming in behind me,” Sborz said. “Really minimize the full circle of the game and worry about what you can control.”
Sborz’s three successful seasons at Virginia earned him the 74th overall selection in the 2015 MLB June draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Since then, he has had success on the mound throughout his minor league career.
“Always strive for the best,” Sborz said. “That school is extremely tough. If you can get through it playing sports [plus] the education, you’re capable of living in this world and making it better. That is what the school has taught me — a lot of life goals that you need to strive for to raise the bar.”
Indeed, lessons learned at Virginia are helping Sborz reach his full potential.
