Vanderbilt baseball pitcher Kevin Ziomek, a member of two of VU's best baseball teams ever, enters our VandySports 100 at No. 65. You can follow our countdown to our No. 1 player at our landing page here.
Honors and awards: 2011 second-team Freshman All-American (NCBWA)
2011 Freshman All-SEC
2013 third-team All-American (NCBWA, Baseball America)
2013 Southeastern Conference Pitcher of the Week (Weeks 3 and 4)
In the VU record book: Single-season wins: tied-10th (11, 2013)
Single-season innings pitched: fifth (119, 2013)
Single-season ERA: eighth (2.12, 2013)
Career ERA: 11th (3.04)
Before VU: Starred at Amherst (Mass.) High, where Perfect Game ranked him the No. 46 player in the Class of 2010. Made Rawlings first-team all-American and was the 2010 Western Massachusetts Pitcher of the Year. Lettered three years in baseball and basketball. Was team captain junior and senior seasons. Drafted in Round 13 by Arizona.
Freshman (2011): The lefty made 27 appearances, with five starts, for a 54-12 (22-8 SEC) team that made VU's first College World Series. Fielded .917 with one error. Pitched 10 2/3 innings in SEC play, allowing just one run. Got the final out in VU's first CWS win over North Carolina. Threw a perfect inning on seven pitches vs. Belmont in VU's NCAA tournament opener. Picked up a win with 3 2/3 no-hit innings in the SEC tournament vs. Georgia. Got his only career save with three scoreless innings in a regular-season appearance at Georgia. Picked up his first collegiate win with five scoreless innings vs. Purdue. Struck out six in 3 1/3 relief innings vs. Western Kentucky. Gave up two runs (one earned) in 5 1/3 innings in his collegiate debut vs. San Diego St.
Sophomore (2012): Appeared 19 times (16 starts) for a 35-28 (16-14) team that finished second in the Raleigh Regional. Had a rough conference season, going 2-5 with a 6.04 ERA, 40 strikeouts and 29 walks in 44 2/3 league innings spanning 11 appearances and nine starts. Fielded .750 with five errors. Struck out eight in 5 2/3 scoreless innings in a no-decision vs. Kentucky. Gave up two runs (one earned) in 6 2/3 innings vs. Auburn. Beat San Diego with eight scoreless innings with eight strikeouts and three hits. Beat Rhode Island with nine Ks in 7 1/3 innings.
Junior (2013): Made 17 appearances, tying for the team lead with 17 starts on a 54-12 (26-3) team that lost to Louisville in the Nashville Super Regional. Had five games of at least 10 strikeouts. Had three complete games; no one else on the staff threw one. Threw 68 2/3 SEC regular-season SEC innings, with a 2.49 ERA, 56 strikeouts and 29 walks and a 6-2 record. Made seven errors and fielded just .794. Lost his last collegiate start in the super regional, giving up four runs in six innings. Gave up two runs in 5 2/3 innings of SEC tournament game vs. South Carolina. Gave up one run with four strikeouts vs. South Carolina in the regular season. Struck out nine and allowed one run in a win over Mississippi St. Beat Ole Miss, allowing one run in 7 1/3 innings with four strikeouts. Gave up one run in 8 1/3 innings with five strikeouts to beat Auburn. Struck out 13 in a complete game to beat Oregon, allowing just one run. Threw a complete-game, 15-strikeout one-hitter to beat Illinois-Chicago. Struck out seven in six innings to top Long Beach State on Opening Day.
Post-VU: Selected in Round 2 (pick 58) by Detroit. Had a good Minor League career, but never made it past "A" ball, but quit baseball after the 2016 season due to shoulder troubles. According to Ziomek's twitter bio, he's now a commercial real estate agent.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: Ziomek had one great year as the No. 1 starter on the best regular-season team in SEC history, another excellent year in which he ranked fifth on the team in innings as a mid-week starter/weekend relief guy for a team that was one of the last four standing in Omaha. In between was a transition year in which he struggled as VU relied on him in a starting role as had less control of his pitches that season. But even in that season, Ziomek threw, by my count, five quality starts.
Ziomek's fielding--he had 13 career errors--is one of the few things one can hold against him. Even then, Ziomek gave up 12 unearned runs in three seasons, which is a relatively low number for the innings he pitched. Of the 23 pitchers in the VandySports 100, only eight gave up fewer unearned runs than Ziomek, and only three of those eight threw more innings than Ziomek. He also pitched in a pitching-friendly era and if you normalize run-scoring throughout the Tim Corbin era, his 3.03 ERA becomes 3.35.
But other than those things, and a down year in conference play as a sophomore, there aren't many marks against Ziomek. He easily earns his spot in the VandySports 100, and has a case for ranking a few spots higher.
Author's footnote: I can barely think of Ziomek without being reminded of T.J. Pecoraro. He and Ziomek were freshmen together in 2011, and other than the fact Pecoraro was right-handed, the two were virtual twins. Each had a 1.59 ERA. Ziomek threw 45 1/3 innings, and Pecoraro, 39 2/3. Ziomek gave up free passes to 10 percent of hitters he faced; Pecoraro was at nine percent. Ziomek struck out 25 percent of the hitters he faced in 2011; Pecoraro was one point higher. Each gave up one home run all season. Batters hit .204 against Ziomek and .183 against Pecoraro.
And then, Pecoraro left a 2011 SEC tournament game holding his right elbow and was never the same. I can't help but wonder how much his career would have mirrored Ziomek's if that never happened.
