At first glance of senior right-hander Paul Bertuccini, you probably won’t see what makes him one of the most reliable pitchers in the SEC and one of the most valuable pitchers in the LSU bullpen.
His 5-11, 185-pound frame does not necessarily exude an intimidating presence, and his fastball barely teases 90 mph.
You can’t see what makes him reliable and valuable because you can’t measure discipline; you can’t calculate determination; and you can’t put a price tag on confidence.
Confidence is the fire that ignites Bertuccini and makes him one of the most clutch pitchers in the country. However, there was no magic potion, nor superstition that allowed Bertuccini to harness the mindset he possesses.
“I think it has a lot to do with repetition,” Bertuccini said. “Ever since Coach Mainieri got here, he’s put me in those situations. He’s seen me fail, but more times than not he’s seen me succeed.
“He builds my confidence and always encourages me. When the coach has confidence in you, and you have confidence in yourself, you can really do anything as long as you keep that mindset.”
Since his redshirt freshman season in 2007, Bertuccini has made 80 appearances and has accumulated a 5-2 record with a 3.25 ERA. However, while his numbers are decent, there is another reason head coach Paul Mainieri has so much confidence in him.
“Paul pitches better in the most pressure situations,” Mainieri said. “He has tremendous poise and composure in the most critical points of the game. He has really been one of the unsung heroes for our team since I’ve been here.”
“I always liked the word clutch,” Bertuccini said. “I tend to pitch better when I’m in that situation, rather than when we have a comfortable lead or when we start a new inning. I like feeding off the crowd’s emotion.”
Some pitchers falter when the pressure of the game becomes too immense. Others, like Bertuccini, rely on an instinct that can’t be taught; only encouraged. The discipline to channel the nervous energy of a pressure situation is something that went hand-in-hand in Bertuccini’s pitching development, a process that began later than normal.
During his high school years, Bertuccini never gave much thought to being a college baseball player. In fact, the Metairie, La. native had never set foot on the mound until the summer after his junior year at Archbishop Rummel High School.
“I never was a really consistent hitter,” Bertuccini admitted. “I played third base when I was a junior in high school, and there were a couple guys who were better than me coming up in age. During the summer on a legion-type team, I got the opportunity to pitch and really picked it up pretty quickly.”
That fall would prove to be the turning point in Bertuccini’s transformation from high school hopeful into a sought-after LSU prospect thanks to a familiar contributor to the LSU baseball program.
Wally Pontiff, Sr. used to coach a fall baseball team in the New Orleans area called the New Orleans Spice, an independent team who traveled around the region competing against community and junior college programs. When he got word of a potential addition to his fall 2004 roster, he was a little bit hesitant.
“I said, ‘Paul Bertuccini? I’ve never heard of him,'” Pontiff said. “I agreed to let him join, but I told his mother we had enough pitchers, and he might be able to throw only two innings a week.”
It wasn’t until Bertuccini’s first workout with the Spice that Pontiff realized he might have something special.
“When he came to workouts he was throwing in the bullpen, and I told him to throw his curveball,” Pontiff recalled. “He threw that curveball and it dropped off the table, like a big-league curve. I told him to throw it again, and he did it again.
“I told him to make a few adjustments: to lift his leg higher, extend on his fastball and stay on top of his curveball. I told him that if he listened to me then he’d pitch in college. He said no one had ever told him that before.”
“He fed me all the confidence in the world,” Bertuccini said of Pontiff. “He’s a lot like Coach Mainieri. He really had all the confidence in the world in me. He stuck with me and really got me pitching well, and brought up the idea of pitching at LSU.”
“He just needed somebody to believe in him,” Pontiff said. “I wanted him to know that he had good enough stuff to pitch in college. I put him in all the tough situations; in all the big games, and every time he went out he did well. He just needed someone behind him that believed in him.”
A few days before a game against Delgado Community College, Pontiff put in a call to Brady Wiederhold, LSU’s pitching coach at the time, and implored him to come take a look at Bertuccini.
“I said that I was going to throw him three innings, and I want you to see,” Pontiff said. “Paul pitched three innings and struck out seven out of nine batters. Brady called me back on his way to Baton Rouge and told me they were going to sign him. I said, ‘Remember, it’s his breaking ball that makes him good. Some people have fastballs, but he has the breaking ball.'”
Bertuccini never forgot how good Coach Pontiff said his breaking ball was. In fact, that confidence allows him to throw a breaking ball on any pitch in the count, which according to Coach Mainieri, is the reason for a lot of his success on the mound.
“When the pressure is greatest on a hitter, having to hit a breaking pitch is much more difficult,” Mainieri explained. “Paul has that confidence to throw his breaking pitch at any point in the count, and that gives him an edge.”
For Bertuccini, confidence does not only apply to the mound. The three-time SEC Academic Honor Roll recipient says that confidence is mandatory in all other phases of life.
“Coach Mainieri is really big into school, and he always tellsl us that if you can succeed in school then you can succeed out here,” Bertuccini said. “I truly believe that. I take pride in school, and I take pride in baseball.
“The same is true with school as it is with baseball. If you have confidence going into a test you’re going to do well. If you’re always doing the right thing and you’re doing it for the right purpose, and if you have confidence in yourself, I think more times than not you’re going to get the job done.”
When you look at Paul Bertuccini, you can’t see what it is that makes him a reliable pitcher, or a disciplined student or a humble, exceptional individual. That’s because it’s inside of him; it’s a part of him; it’s confidence.