Following surgery, IU's best pitcher to finally get NCAA tournament start

BLOOMINGTON — Staring out the clubhouse window at a sunbathed Bart Kaufman Field, Kyle Hart starts to wrap four years of seismic change and personal adversity into words.

"We're a long way from where we started," he says.

As he stretches his arms back over his head, he exposes the four-inch scar on the underside of his left elbow, a souvenir from UCL repair surgery, better known as Tommy John. That cost Hart the latter half of his junior season, tethering him to the dugout during last year's regional loss to Stanford when his team needed a left arm — his left arm — to match up against Cardinal hitters.

"That's probably the most empty feeling you could have," he says now, "not traveling, listening to your team on the radio, watching Stanford beat you. Just, I can't help my guys out there."

A weekend starter since his freshman season, Hart will reach a personal milestone two years later this weekend: his first NCAA tournament appearance.

The injury cost him the chance last season. In 2013, he was the break-glass-in-case-of-elimination-game starter for the regional and super regional the Hoosiers never needed on the way to the College World Series.

Now, 13 months removed from surgery, he's IU's best starter. Coach Chris Lemonis said this week he prefers to pitch his best guys first, and Hart is getting the ball before anyone else.

'HE WANTED THE BALL'

Hart rolls out to 6-5, and a lean 193 pounds. A Cincinnati native, he's been a part of Indiana's weekend rotation nearly his whole career. He's won 20 games as a Hoosier, and never finished a season with an ERA higher than 3.21.

Composure comes as easily as his dry sense of humor. Once, during his freshman season, after an umpire hit him a rather vociferous balk call, Hart said he "thought he was going to put me in timeout."

Deadpan jokes aside, Hart is hard to rattle.

"He's become one of the strongest-minded pitchers I've ever been around," says Kyle Schwarber, Hart's teammate at IU, and before that in club baseball.

That bears out in earned run averages and walk totals that have tumbled each year for Hart, now a redshirt junior.

Last season, before surgery, opponents were hitting just .160 against him. That number is up this year, but his ERA is a career-low 1.48. In 30 1/3 innings, a total tempered by rehabilitation, he's walked just three batters.

Indiana's season was listing away from the NCAA tournament at the end of April, when the Hoosiers had lost 15 of 23. They won Game 1 at Maryland on May 1, then handed Hart the ball.

"The maturity, the toughness side is what we needed," Lemonis says. "He wanted the ball, even if it was just for three or four innings."

Hart went five, throwing 71 pitches (he's still on a growing pitch count) and allowing just one run. Indiana won 13-2 and, the next day, swept Maryland, a series victory that kick-started an 11-3 end to the season, enough to secure the Hoosiers' first-ever at-large NCAA tournament bid.

QUIET PARADISE

Hart grew up in Cincinnati, but it's across the border in Indiana where he feels most comfortable. There, his father owns a farm spanning more than 300 acres.

"Just your own paradise," Hart says.

He fishes, bow hunts, drives a tractor — mostly just enjoys the peace that comes with spending a day by yourself in the middle of nowhere.

That unflappable mound demeanor? Maybe it starts on his farm.

"You spend a lot of time on your own. You sit there kind of hanging out, trying to wait, be patient. I think that helps with pitching, because you just let things happen, let it fall into place," Hart says. "Sometimes, the mound can be a very lonely place, just like the woods can be."

The mound was exactly that a year ago April at Ohio State, when Hart felt a twinge in his elbow.

He'd heard stories about elbow ligament injuries, how the pain was so severe that pitchers couldn't raise their arms, or throw even a balled-up sock.

But Hart didn't feel that. He almost didn't come out of the game. It wasn't his elbow that raised the alarm.

"I did kind of get that uneasy feeling in my stomach," Hart says now, "which kind of leads me to believe that my body knew something was wrong."

Timothy Kremchek, a Cincinnati surgeon and the Reds' medical director, repaired Hart's elbow, beginning a year-long rehab. Even now, Hart says the most difficult days he faces aren't those of his starts, but all the others in between.

"The toughest thing has been the off-the-field stuff, getting my body ready," Hart says. "That's probably where I'm putting the most effort in."

After this conversation, Hart will go stretch his arm out in a bullpen session with pitching coach Kyle Bunn. Hart doesn't know yet that he's starting Friday, against a Radford team that hasn't lost since April 26, that won its regular-season and conference tournament titles, that has six players batting .295 or better.

He just knows he needs to feel good today. If he feels good today, and then tomorrow, he'll feel good this weekend.

"(Hart's) a good communicator," Bunn says, just before that bullpen session. "He can let you know, 'This is what I'm feeling today, this is how my body is reacting, this is what I'm gonna feel like tomorrow.' … You've got to kind of let him have a big voice in the entire situation."

RIGHT WHERE HE WANTS TO BE

Will Hart be on a pitch count Friday?

He's thrown 93, 85 and 93 in his last three starts, so the arm is stretching out. Lemonis and Bunn will tell you that for Hart, it's as much about the stress of the inning as it is about the actual number of pitches. Against Maryland, pushing his limit, Lemonis sent Hart out for one more inning — four pitches, three outs, no stress.

"Our goal going into this whole deal is, let's make sure we have the ability to pitch in May, and moving right on into June," Bunn said. "I guess if you had to script it out, we're probably right where we want to be with him."

That script is playing out.

Lemonis says he wants his best pitcher up first, and he's going with Kyle Hart. After four years, a pair of Big Ten regular season and tournament titles, three postseason appearances and one career-altering surgery, Hart will get the ball for an NCAA tournament game.

"You just have to stay even-keeled," he says. "Just keep filling up the zone, pitching to my strengths."

Indiana is a long way from where it started. And so is Kyle Hart.

Follow Star reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

What: No. 3 IU (34-22) vs. No. 2 RADFORD (43-14), NCAA tournament regional Game 1

When: 3 p.m. Friday

Where: Hawkins Field, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.

TV: ESPN3

Radio: IU Radio Network

Probables: LHP Kyle Hart, IU (4-0, 1.48 ERA); LHP Michael Boyle, Radford (10-2, 2.27 ERA)