Saty For Hire: Will Work Weekends

BOSTON—His name can be a mouthful, but his forkball was a handful for UMass yesterday.

Harvard junior Madhu Satyanarayana—“Saty,” for short—got the loss in the Crimson’s 5-3 setback at Fenway Park, but he looked sharp in his 6.2 innings of work. The 6’3 righthander from Fort Worth, Texas, threw three pitches for strikes—including a highly effective forkball—as he worked through a relatively painless first five innings.

A month ago, Saty would never have been pitching in yesterday’s game. He’d likely be resting his arm after starting one of the Crimson’s more important Ivy contests over the previous weekend.

That was the original plan anyway. But a pair of shaky starts—and one rather forgettable relief appearance against Penn two weeks ago—ended Saty’s weekend gig. When sophomore pitcher Marc Hordon returned from a hand injury last Sunday, senior Chaney Sheffield—who had been promoted from spot-starter when Hordon went down—stayed on the weekend shift. Saty was the odd man out.

Now Saty’s working his way back one baby step at a time. The first came in a relief appearance against Boston College last Wednesday, when he worked a hitless ninth and fanned two.

Then came yesterday’s outing. Saty displayed good control and didn’t fall behind hitters for most of yesterday. A bunt single was the only hit he allowed prior to the fifth inning.

“My last two weekend starts weren’t very good,” Saty said. “Right now I’m trying to get my rhythm back and work my way back into the rotation.”

After the game, Harvard Coach Joe Walsh stopped short of handing Saty his old job back. But he did like what he saw.

“Today was a real strong effort on his part,” Walsh said of Saty. “We didn’t make a couple plays early in the ballgame and that got his pitch count up and gave [UMass] four outs. But he was going after hitters and...I was impressed.”

“He pitched well enough to win today and we didn’t do enough with the sticks to help him out,” Walsh added.

Saty said he didn’t have great faith in his changeup yesterday—he guessed he threw two good ones all day. The changeup can be a nice third option to have in addition to a fastball and a curve. It worked wonders for senior Ben Crockett and Hordon over the weekend against Yale.

But Saty has a different, much rarer third pitch in his forkball. The pitch is similar to a split-fingered fastball, dropping viciously just as it reaches home plate.

The forkball comes naturally to Saty, who can split his forefinger and middle finger far apart without putting much stress on his wrist. He first experimented with the pitch at age 14 and a coach spotted it and encouraged him to use it. It’s been at his disposal ever since, though he had mostly abandoned it during his first two seasons in Cambridge.

Saty relied on the pitch heavily yesterday, however.

“My forkball was really good,” Saty said. “It was my out pitch. I got a couple strikeouts with it and a few ground balls to third and short.”

Not everything came easy for Saty, however. While he did a good job keeping his fastball down most of the afternoon, some of his pitches drifted a little farther up in the zone than he wanted. When that happened, Saty said, “I got hit.”

In the fifth, Saty left a 1-1 fastball just a bit too high to Minutemen rightfielder Jason Twomley and it cost him. Twomey swatted the offering into the visitor’s bullpen in right field. The homer broke a 1-1 tie and snapped Saty’s string of 14 batters faced without allowing a hit.

Saty ran into a little more trouble—and some bad luck—in the seventh. After pinch hitter Cullen Maumus flew out to start the inning, second baseman Adam Stojanowski crushed a pitch to left that fell in between outfielders Bryan Hale and Javy Lopez in left-center.

The speedy Hale almost tracked the gap-shot down, but was playing too shallow and straightaway in center to catch up with it in time. The hit ignited a three-run rally that gave UMass a 5-3 lead and pinned Saty with the loss.

It was, however, a loss that Harvard can stand if it signals a return to form by Saty.

“Hopefully this is a good start and can help me get back in [the rotation],” Saty said.

“That’s what you want to be—a weekend starter. I’m trying to get back in there and get things going again like I was earlier in the season to help the team.”

At the very least, Saty’s given Walsh something to think about. UMass will probably remember his name, too—at least in its shortened form.