Michael Klein is living the high school dream.
At Mountain Vista High School in his hometown of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, Klein starred as a pitcher and hitter. He completed his varsity career with a 3.02 earned run average and 78 strikeouts in 88 innings on the mound. At the plate, he had a .373 average with 52 RBIs in 53 games.
In high school, the best players excel on both sides of play. In college, nearly everyone is forced to choose between hitting and pitching.
But then there’s Klein, who has batted cleanup in all nine games for the Bobcats this season as the designated hitter, while making two starts as a pitcher.
“I get to do both, which is fun,” Klein, a redshirt junior, said. “I love it. It keeps me occupied. When I’m pitching one game, I don’t have to worry completely on pitching. I can hit. And then, (hitting) gets my mind off of pitching, and then I switch it around.”
Klein hasn’t had a problem switching it around and finding success wherever he is on the field. In the batter’s box, he’s hitting .316 with five extra base hits. On the mound, he’s given up just one run in nine innings while striking out 14.
Ohio coach Rob Smith said Klein — who went to the junior college (JUCO) World Series in 2015 with Iowa Western Community College and spent 2014 with Nebraska — was recruited to be a two-way player.
Last year, however, Klein was fairly one-sided. He tossed 54 1/3 innings in 19 appearances versus just 24 at-bats in 11 games.
Smith had planned on using Klein as the team’s Sunday starter heading into 2017, but an offensive surge in the fall season suggested he’d get more chances at the plate, too.
Now, Klein appears to be equal parts pitcher and hitter.
“I mean, he’s a weekend starter and a four-hole hitter,” Smith said. “So I don’t know if it can get much more even than that.”
Being so evenly focused on two different aspects of the game requires Klein to put in extra work. He has reps to do in practice that other pitchers and hitters don’t.
That means getting to practice 10-15 minutes early for what he called “arm care.” On off days, he spends two hours running, stretching and working on flexibility. Sometimes he does yoga. The idea is to stay as healthy as possible with his heavy workload.
“It’s a juggling act and it’s one that we work very closely with him on to make sure that we can get everything done that we need to get done and keep him healthy,” Smith said.
For all the promise of Klein’s dual role so far, the small sample size hints at one negative: pitching may affect Klein as a hitter.
In the two games he’s pitched and hit, Klein is just 1-for-8 (.125) with a walk. In comparison, he’s batted 11-for-30 (.366) in the seven games he spent as strictly a designated hitter.
Those numbers could change drastically in a matter of a couple weeks, but they could also be the start of a trend for Ohio’s coaching staff to consider.
Klein doesn’t view this special role as a burden. Instead, it enables him to think about the game as a big picture rather than focusing on an individual pitching matchup or at-bat. He likened it to flushing a toilet.
“Once you make a bad plate appearance, you gotta flush it and then go help your team out pitching-wise,” he said. “And then pitching-wise, if you give up a run, your next time at-bat do a sac bunt, push the guy over, maybe get a run in.
“You can actually help yourself out as a two-way pitcher and hitter during the same time.”
Klein is helping himself while also helping the team. He leads Ohio in several major categories, including hits, doubles, total bases and home runs as a batter, and opponent batting average, ERA and hits allowed as a starting pitcher.
But if he could only pick to be one, pitcher or hitter, what would he be?
“That’s tough because they’re totally two different things,” he said. “When you’re on the mound, it’s like you’ve got the ball in your hand and you’re the guy. And you’re in charge. It’s such a different feeling hitting a home run, running around the bases than striking the side out and coming in to your teammates.”
He ended up saying he’d pick pitching if he really had to choose. Right now, he doesn’t.
