OLEAN, N.Y. — It started with a warm reception from the Bradner Stadium crowd and ended with a tough-luck no decision.
But in total, Maxx Yehl’s first appearance with the Olean Oilers showed why the New York Collegiate Baseball League team was so eager to add the soon-to-be Portville Central School graduate to their roster.
Yehl started the second game of Olean’s doubleheader with the Syracuse Spartans Saturday night and threw four electric innings. In four scoreless frames, Yehl scattered three hits and struck out eight batters.
He ran into trouble in the fifth, though, allowing two singles and tossing two wild pitches to let the runners advance, and was lifted after a walk to load the bases.
Leading 4-0 when he exited in that precarious position, Olean’s bullpen could not preserve a win for the young southpaw. A bases-clearing double let in all three of Yehl’s inherited runners and Olean couldn’t stop the bleeding from there, finishing with a 10-run inning against a total of three pitchers, giving Syracuse all the offense it needed to win 11-7 and split the doubleheader after Olean won the first game 11-4.
“He looked fantastic,” Oilers coach Andrew White said of Yehl’s first start. “We kind of played it up for him a little bit, so I was kind of nervous about how he’d live up to the hype because I knew he had a lot of people coming out. He pitched really well. He got himself into a little bit of a jam in the fifth, but that’s baseball, things happen.”
Yehl finished with eight strikeouts and two walks and allowed three earned runs on five hits.
“The first four innings were very strong and the fifth inning didn’t really go my way,” Yehl said. “(I) walked the bases loaded and they pulled me.”
After leading Portville to a New York State Class C semifinal appearance, Yehl almost immediately joined the Oilers’ roster in an announcement last Sunday. He’s set to report to West Virginia University later this summer to prepare for his first Division I season for the Mountaineers in the Big 12.
White said the Oilers won’t overuse the lefty.
“We have a pitch limit,” he said. “We’re not really letting him go over 75, 80 pitches a game. I don’t know how many games he’s going to be able to throw for us just because he leaves to go to West Virginia and the draft and all that’s coming up. He’s a great pitcher. So we wish him the best and hopefully he can give us a few more quality outings before he goes.”
For however long he stays with the Oilers, White wants to see Yehl find ways to work late into games despite the pitch limits.
“What we want to see out of him is just command of all his pitches,” he said. “We just want him to go out there, throw strikes, work deep into games, don’t really fall behind batters. That way his pitch count stays down so he can go longer into these games for us.”
Yehl attended Oilers games as a youngster and thought of playing for the team one day.
“I grew up watching these boys play and I always thought it would be cool to throw a uniform on and play for them,” he said. “For that to finally come true means a lot, for sure.”
Saturday’s nightcap had an announced crowd of 450, and many seemed to be there to watch Yehl, who got a big cheer when he was announced to take the mound and an equally strong one when he exited the mound in the fifth.
“It felt great seeing the community here cheering me on when I went out there,” he said. “Definitely one for the memories for sure.”
Just a week into his Oilers tenure, Yehl said he already felt like he’d been there “a while,” thanks to his teammates and coaches accepting him with “open arms.”
While he’s around, Yehl wants to use his Oilers starts to get better playing against college-level players consistently for the first time.
“Just keep throwing against college guys will get me better,” Yehl said. “Work on my placement a little more, stay consistent. The better the competition, the better you’ll get.
“It’s definitely different,” he added of facing college players. “There’s a lot I can learn from it, a lot I can benefit from it.”
