"It scares you," he says. "I had a lot of time this summer sitting at home -- all my buddies are playing ball or going to summer school, vacation -- and it was a lot of time to think about things."
Sitting in Reckling Park with an icepack on his shoulder a week before Rice's season opener, he says the rehabbing has gone about as well as can be expected so far. "It's definitely been a process," he says. "I've only thrown curveballs on three different occasions, but I'm slowly bringing it back. And I'm missing, and the reason is you're guarding your arm. You have to tell yourself -- and I heard this from the doctor a couple of weeks ago -- 'Whatever needed to heal in there has healed'...It's not an exact science, and you have to be patient and trust that it will come back, but it's not flipping a switch."
Baseball America's cover boy sits on top of the Longhorns
Daniel Kramer
In the opener Savery pitched great; hitting was another matter.
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A few days later Rice opens its season on an overcast, chilly day at Reckling Park. For anyone who's experienced the raucous baseball crowds at LSU, the 3,300 or so Rice fans can seem a bit sedate, upscale and studious. But getting that many people into the stands for a February game against unknown Central Missouri is an accomplishment in itself.
There was some thought before the game of keeping Savery off the mound to protect his arm, but everyone decides he's good to go. To be safe, he'll throw no more than two innings.
A half-dozen or so scouts are sitting behind home plate aiming radar guns and taking copious notes. Savery doesn't let them down -- he gets his fastball over the 90-mph mark a number of times, enough to show that the rehab is going well. He throws two scoreless innings and later, as he and his teammates engage in their traditional post-game rite of standing by the fence and signing autographs for dozens of kids, he says his arm felt fine.
"I was a little nervous, but once the first pitch goes you feel better," he says.
Batting, however, was another matter. He struck out twice and was badly fooled on a number of pitches. He got on base twice -- via an error and being hit by a pitch -- scoring both times in a 5–0 Rice win, but it was a disappointing start at the plate.
That won't matter in the long run, though. Rice has plenty of bats in the line-up, and odds are Savery will come around. (Although that can still be a head game; Savery realizes opponents' scouts say he's weak on inside fastballs, so he's constantly battling to both be aware of that and not overcompensate for it.)
More importantly, in terms of his potential professional future, batting is irrelevant. If Savery makes it in the pros, as everybody fully expects he will, it will be as a pitcher, not a hitter. Pro teams will give left-handed power pitchers every chance to succeed because they are rare and precious things. And if hard work makes any difference, Savery seems almost destined to fulfill his potential.
"With his work ethic, with his athleticism, I believe he will be playing on TV one day, there's not a doubt in my mind," says his former high school coach Garza. "If he can stay healthy he will be on TV and I will be able to watch him and say I had the honor of coaching that guy."
"There's no question that if he's healthy he is one of the best pitchers in the country," says Baseball America's Fitt.
Savery, the All-American guy as always, insists he's not focusing on making the pros right now so much as he is on bringing another championship to Rice. "I feel as if we don't get to Omaha it will be a disappointing year, simply because we have so much returning and we have that experience," he says. "Given the talent we have, the coaches we have and now the experience we have -- and once you get to Omaha, some teams are hot, some are not -- I don't see any reason we couldn't contend for a national championship."
That understated but evident confidence is what he's shown throughout the years -- as he consistently jumped ahead of his age group as a youth and teen; as he broke into the starting lineup as a Lamar freshman on a team that featured seven players who went on to play major college ball; as he toured Japan and Taiwan on a college All-Star team; as he's faced ever-rising expectations, more and more scouts' radar guns, more and more cover stories and scrutiny he'd just as soon do without.
Winning in Omaha would be yet another crowning moment in the extremely charmed baseball life of Joe Savery. It's safe to say it likely won't be the last.
