Jeremiah Kerns said he feels no pressure as the ace of the Tartan Pride.<\/p>\n
Kerns, a six-foot-one, 175-pound right-hander, was the 2010 Ohio Community College Athletic Conference (OCCAC) Pitcher of the Year as a freshman.<\/p>\n
As a freshman, Kerns went 5-1, threw 38 innings, allowed 24 hits and 16 walks while striking out 41, with a 1.86 ERA, en route to winning his award.<\/p>\n
Kerns\u2019 2011 season hasn\u2019t been as good\u2014by his own admission.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t done as well,\u201d Kerns said. He attributed this to the OCCAC being better in 2011.\u00a0 He mentioned specifically the improvement of Cuyahoga Community College.<\/p>\n
\u201cCuyahoga and Owens [Community College] both hit me pretty good,\u201d Kerns said.<\/p>\n
Despite his claim, Kerns is 3-1 with a 3.31 ERA and leads the Tartan Pride in innings and is second in strikeouts.<\/p>\n
Going into the 2011 season, coach Steve Dintaman said the foundation and strength of his club was his starting pitching, led by Kerns, Austin Pressly and Christian McElroy.\u00a0 Dintaman has said before that focus can be an issue for players, but that Kerns doesn\u2019t have those problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cJeremiah is one of the few players who doesn\u2019t need much of a mental game,\u201d Dintaman said. \u201cHis mind is clear and he just attacks hitters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dintaman also said that being the OCCAC Pitcher of the Year adds something to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he has more of a presence then last year,\u201d Dintaman said.\u00a0 \u201cBeing the conference pitcher of the year and feeding off last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
How he\u2019s grown since last year<\/strong><\/p>\n Kerns said he throws a four-seam fastball,\u00a0 two-seam fastball, a curveball, a slider and a changeup.\u00a0 He said his four-seam fastball velocity last year was \u201c85-87 MPH\u201d and he now sits at \u201c88-90 MPH.\u201d\u00a0 That added strength has also helped his slider.<\/p>\n Kerns said the slider is his best pitch and he can throw it any count and get swings-and-misses.<\/p>\n \u201cSince last year it has more break and more velocity,\u201d Kerns said.<\/p>\n Kerns said that pitching coach Rick Castle recently helped him develop a two-seam fastball, which he uses to get groundball outs.\u00a0 Generally, a four-seam fastball is harder but straighter; a two-seamer will be slightly slower but with more break.<\/p>\n \u201cI use it to go for groundballs and to jam power hitters,\u201d Kerns said.<\/p>\n What he expects out of himself and the team<\/strong><\/p>\n The stated goal for the Tartan Pride by Dintaman was to get to the World Series in Oklahoma. Kerns said he feels the team can \u201cget over the hump\u201d and do that.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel good about the staff,\u201d Kerns said.\u00a0 \u201cWe have a lot of depth, we are dedicated.\u00a0 Everyone pushes everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Kerns said he knows the coaches might go with the hot hand when it comes to picking a starter for the postseason, but that doesn\u2019t mean he doesn\u2019t want to start.<\/p>\n \u201cI expect it,\u201d Kerns said.\u00a0 \u201cI demand that out of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jeremiah Kerns said he feels no pressure as the ace of the Tartan Pride. Kerns, a six-foot-one, 175-pound right-hander, was the 2010 Ohio Community College Athletic Conference (OCCAC) Pitcher of the Year as a freshman. As a freshman, Kerns went 5-1, threw 38 innings, allowed 24 hits and 16 walks while striking out 41, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":229,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1FJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6431"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6457,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6431\/revisions\/6457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}