Tyler Stultz spent the fall of 2021 wondering where it all went wrong. The confidence baked into his DNA, the bulldog attitude he embraced like a lost love because he hated and feared losing with a feral obsession was beaten up.
Jason Dietrich spent the fall of 2021 watching his pitching project get lit up like a pinball machine. The first-year Cal State Fullerton head coach saw the innate competitiveness Stultz embraced when assistant coach Neil Walton first brought Stultz to his attention earlier that summer. Yet, he also saw something else — something else standing in Stultz’s way.
Himself.
“He was doing too much mechanically. He was getting in his own way because he wanted to impress coaches and impress his teammates, and when you do that, you get out of your element,” Dietrich said. “It wasn’t a bad thing; he cared so much that he tried to do too much. We tried to help him understand about trying to slow things down and teach him composure and poise.”
Dietrich sat Stultz down and told him all of the above. He also told the junior left-hander that he needed to develop a change-up to go with his fastball and slider and that he didn’t need to throw the ball through a wall. Just throw strikes and do what got you here.
Stultz is nothing if not a quick study. He’s also a YouTube junkie who watches videos of major-league pitchers on an endless loop, seeking what they do well from a mechanical standpoint. So, Dietrich’s message was the best advice he could have given him.
And yet, Dietrich saved the best message for just before the spring season began.
The Titans opened the 2022 season at perennial nemesis Stanford, which began the season ranked sixth in the country. That this was 38 miles from where Stultz grew up in Livermore meant his parents, friends and even some former teammates at Ohlone College were ready to make the trek to the Cardinal Sunken Diamond.
“I had a rough fall and not a great spring,” Stultz said. “I remember I…
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