By JOHN BOHNENKAMP
Coy Sarsfield arrived a little late — there was this little matter of playing in the NCAA baseball tournament — but he’s found a daily home in the Burlington Bees’ lineup.
Getting to play in the Prospect League every day, the outfielder from Iowa said, is important after battling back from a broken leg that cost him most of his senior season in high school and his first season with the Hawkeyes.
“It’s been almost two years of not playing consistently,” Sarsfield said. “Now, playing consistently, I think it’s going to be huge for me, just getting back into everything. The biggest thing is pitching, getting live at-bats. I feel like being here, just for five games, I feel like I’m seeing the ball better, getting better swings.”
Sarsfield is hitting .292 after seven games with the Bees. He had a five-game hitting streak snapped with an 0-for-3 game in Saturday’s loss to the O’Fallon Hoots.
Sarsfield has found a home in the Bees’ outfield, playing mostly in right field. He showed his defensive abilities in last Thursday’s 9-8 win over Illinois Valley, when he made a sliding catch on a sinking line drive from Pistol Shrimp catcher Nick Chavez. Sarsfield threw to first and appeared to get Logan Delgado coming back to the base — Delgado was originally called out, but the call was overruled after base umpire Dan Carriker consulted with plate umpire Jacob Fisher.
“Damn near a double play,” marveled Bees manager Owen Oreskovich. “He made a hell of a catch out there, and came up throwing.
“He’s quick, he’s got some juice, he knows the game, and he can roam around the outfield. So it’s huge for us to have a kid like that.”
What’s huge for Sarsfield is just getting to play consistently. He broke his leg seven games into his senior season in 2021 at Linn-Mar High School in Marion, Iowa and had to have surgery. A second surgery in November of that year led to Sarsfield sitting out his freshman year with the Hawkeyes.
“He’s seeing at-bats on consecutive days, and I think that’s going to benefit that kid a lot,” Oreskovich said. “He loves the game.”
Sarsfield played in just 17 games for Iowa this season, hitting .176, but he was involved with one of the biggest moments for the Hawkeyes in their 6-5 win over North Carolina in an elimination game on June 4 in the NCAA’s Terre Haute Regional.
Sarsfield, pinch-running for Blake Guerin in the 13th inning, scored the go-ahead run, coming around from first base on Michael Seegers’ triple.
“In my head, I know there’s two outs and as soon as there’s contact, I’m going,” Sarsfield said. “Michael Seegers gets a hold of one, I saw it was touched pretty well. I didn’t know where it was going. I just put my head down, got around second, saw (Iowa coach Rick) Heller waving his arms, and I made it home. I was thinking, ‘I’m going to score and we’re going to win this game.’”
The Hawkeyes, though, lost to Indiana State in the next game to end the season.
“It was unreal,” Sarsfield said. “Just the atmosphere, the energy. Playing for something really big, and everything that comes with that, is pretty cool. Obviously, it didn’t end the way we wanted it to turn out. Kind of heartbreaking. But it gives everyone a vision for what we want to do in the future.”
Sarsfield has been envisioning his future since arriving at Iowa. But getting a chance to observe has been helpful, he said.
“A year in college, just watching, it’s crazy how much you can see, and how much you can learn when you get in a game situation,” Sarsfield said. “You don’t realize until you watch people do things how much you need to prepare to be ready. In high school, you know you have to work hard. Then, you get to Iowa, and you see you really need to work harder to get on the field.”
Sarsfield joined the Bees on June 10, and made his first start the following day at Clinton.
“Obviously there’s some nerves going into a new situation,” he said. “But once I got into the clubhouse, everyone was welcoming. It’s baseball, everyone understands at this age what’s going on and has a good understanding of everything.”
Oreskovich has used Sarsfield in the middle of the Bees’ lineup. He went 2-for-5 in Thursday’s win, including a two-run double in Burlington’s five-run fourth inning.
“I hit him in the ‘5’ hole because I know he’s someone who’s going to put the bat on the ball,” Oreskovich said. “And he actually came up with some giant hits.”
“I would say it’s very important,” Sarsfield said of getting to consistently be in the lineup. “This year at Iowa, I didn’t get to play a bunch. Now that I’m back in the swing of things, it’s allowing me to play much better and getting me back in a rhythm.”
Top photo: Burlington Bees outfielder Coy Sarsfield bats in Thursday’s game against Illinois Valley. (John Lovretta/bees-blog.com)
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