Like a lot of teams in Class B North this season, the Hermon Hawks have really leaned on their pitching staff.
But unlike most other high school baseball teams anywhere, that pitching staff has a former major league hurler there to share his experience in the dugout.
Matt Kinney has been the head baseball coach at Hermon High School for about a decade. And when he took the job, he brought a unique resume with him. Kinney, a former Bangor High School standout, was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 1995 and spent five seasons pitching in the major leagues with several teams including the Twins, San Francisco Giants, Kansas City Royals and Milwaukee Brewers.
And that experience has been helpful for the Hawks, senior pitcher Max Hopkins said last week.
“If you ever have a question about what’s wrong with your mechanics, or why you’re missing where you are, he knows exactly what’s wrong,” said Hopkins, a talented pitcher in his own right who will be playing at Husson University next season.
Kinney was on hand last week at Hermon High School as the athletic department celebrated Hopkins and two other Hermon athletes who will be continuing their athletic careers at Husson University next year.
“You can’t teach experience, but you can try to give them a little edge up on some of the things,” Kinney said when asked about how his experience as a player translates to coaching.
A lot of that involves communicating about the work ethic and mental preparation required for players to take their games to the next level, he explained.
“There’s a lot of great coaches around the area that know a lot of things, but I don’t think there’s that many that have the same experience that I do,” Kinney said. “So I think that can help at times, but like I said, if the kids want to learn and listen, they can get a lot out of it.”
Hermon heads into the Class B playoffs at 9-7, good enough for fifth in the Class B North standings, which true to early predictions from coaches, are pretty balanced. And even in most of those losses, the Hawks’ pitching has been solid.
“Our record doesn’t necessarily reflect how we’ve thrown the ball. We’ve had a lot of tight games that we lost that it wasn’t our pitching that caused it,” Kinney said.
In Hermon’s seven regular season losses, Hawks pitching has only given up five or more runs one time — an 8-0 loss against Class A Bangor.
“So the pitching has been great, and it’s been nice to watch these kids develop,” Kinney said. “I’ll give them suggestions, but a lot of times they’re calling their own games, trying to learn how to do it. Now if they make some mistakes with what they call, we’ll discuss it afterwards, but most of the time, I trust them to make the right call.”
Hermon’s starting rotation has leaned heavily on Hopkins, Ethan Curtis and Mason Kinney, one of coach Kinney’s two sons on the team. His other son, starting first baseman Maddox Kinney, credited the team’s pitchers for their work on the mound this season.
“Our pitching has definitely been our biggest part of our team this year,” Maddox Kinney said. He credited his teammates for being “locked down” on the mound and noted that Hermon’s losses have typically been close in low-scoring games. He agreed that his dad’s experience can be an asset for the team.
“It helps having him because he knows when to put our pitchers against the right teams,” said Maddox Kinney, who has also logged some innings pitching this season.
Matt Kinney said he just tries to relay the things he went through in his baseball career, and acknowledged that players might sometimes be more inclined to listen to his advice when it includes a story about the Boston Red Sox or Minnesota Twins.
“I got to play baseball at every level and got to experience all of it,” he said. “So whenever something comes up that I might have experienced that they haven’t, I like to try to pass on what I know.”