All-Shore Baseball – Player of the Year: Andrew DiPiazza, Central

Central Regional senior right-hander Andrew DiPiazza returned for the 2014 season as the defending All Shore Media/Shore Sports Network Pitcher of the Year, but did not repeat as the winner of the award for three primary reasons: 1) An early-season limit on pitches; 2) a late-season injury and 3) historically great seasons by two other Shore Conference pitchers.

DiPiazza is, however, the Shore Sports Network Player of the Year for one major reason: power.

Although limited on the mound by a cautious approach to monitoring his innings early in the season and a bout with bone spurs in his pitching elbow late in the season, DiPiazza still turned in one of the best offensive seasons in the recent history of the Golden Eagles program while leading Central to its first Ocean County Tournament championship since 1986.

Over the course of the season, DiPiazza piled up offensive numbers that placed him with the best hitters in the Shore Conference. Among Shore Conference hitters, he finished in the top 20 in batting average (.423), the top 10 in on-base percentage (.533), and the top five in slugging percentage (.732). He also finished second in the Shore with five home runs behind only St. John Vianney slugger Joe Rotelli (six) and tied for 11th in the conference with 23 RBI. His .732 slugging also set a Central school record for a single season.

“When I was a little kid, I always told people that I was going to be a Major League hitter,” DiPiazza – who had never hit .300 in a season prior to this season and had two career home runs to his name – said after winning the Ocean County championship. “I used to take 500 swings every day trying to make myself a great hitter, and my first three years of high school, I was terrible. This last year, I knew this was a big offseason for me so I didn’t do any hitting and just focused on pitching. Sure enough, I’m having my best season at the plate.”

More than just the overall numbers, DiPiazza’s performance at the plate in Central’s Ocean County Tournament run made his senior season a special one. Over the four games of the OCT, DiPiazza went 5-for-10 with a home run and three RBI, including a 2-for-4 game with an RBI in the 6-0 championship win over Barnegat that included.

Despite the new-found power and the offensive accolades, DiPiazza still did his best work on the mound. Although he was limited to 44 2/3 innings, the University of Alabama recruit finished in the top-10 in five major categories among qualified Shore Conference starting pitchers. He finished fifth in earned-run average (0.94), third in WHIP (0.76), 10th in total strikeouts (61), sixth in strikeouts-per-seven-innings (9.56) and ninth in strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.03).

Andrew DiPiazza: Game-by-Game

Andrew DiPiazza in the Ocean County Tournament

After earning just one win in his first five appearances of the season on the mound, DiPiazza went 3-0 with a save over his final four appearances of the season to finish 4-0 with two saves. He threw his first complete game of the season on April 28 in an 11-strikeout, two-hit performance in a 2-1 win over Lacey, then notched complete-game wins over Toms River South and Toms River North in subsequent rounds of the Ocean County Tournament. His one-hit, one-walk, 11-strikeout masterpiece in a 2-1 win at Ken Frank Stadium against Toms River North in the OCT quarterfinals was the seminal moment of DiPiazza’s season and, perhaps, his career.

Prior to the Toms River South start, DiPiazza experienced some tightness in his right forearm and after pitching the game of his high school career, he and his coaches collectively decided that his start six days later against Toms River North would be his last of the season. Pitching with bone spurs in his pitching elbow – an injury that can cause significant pain, but does not necessarily prohibit a pitcher from performing – DiPiazza fired a complete game with no earned runs allowed against the hottest offense in Ocean County at the time.

“We knew before the Toms River North game that it was going to be my last start,” said DiPiazza, who was considered a possible second-day pick in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft prior to his injury. “It was a situation where the injury wasn’t going to get worse, but I didn’t want to get to a point where I was pitching through pain and putting myself at risk of a worse injury. This way, there’s a definite rehab that I can follow that should get me back and throwing at 100 percent after three months of rest, which is the goal right now.”

Since his sophomore season, DiPiazza went 14-0 with 188 strikeouts in 127 2/3 innings as a varsity pitcher. He has been the Shore Conference’s most dominant pitcher over his last two cumulative season, going 13-0 with a 0.82 ERA in that span. In 110 2/3 innings during his junior and senior seasons, DiPiazza struck out 167 batters while walking 40 and allowing 46 hits. While his strikeout rate dipped from 11.24 per sever innings last year to 9.56 this year, he also cut his walk rate from 2.97 walks per seven innings in 2013 to 1.88 in his senior year.

DiPiazza will leave for the University of Alabama on June 28 and said he expects to resume throwing by mid-August, in time to bid for a weekend starting job on a competitive Southeastern Conference program. He also said he hopes to compete for a spot in the batting order after tapping into his power in the batters box during his senior year of high school.