STILL LEARNING
Coach lauds Jared Mang’s potential, strength
As is his way, University of New Mexico head baseball coach Ray Birmingham pulled no punches when it came to speaking his mind.
Take, for instance, Los Alamos High School graduate and current Lobos sophomore Jared Mang.
Mang was just named the Mountain West player of the week after hitting a robust .471, with eight runs and seven RBI. Overall, he’s hitting .333 with two homers and 29 RBI.
“He has all the potential in the world to play in the big leagues and play well,” Birmingham said. “But he had to learn. He’s athletic enough and smart enough to be a big leaguer. He’s awesome. I love him.”
But that learning process is still an ongoing thing, the Lobos coach said.
“Jared liked to hit around the baseball and he continually underachieved because of it,” Birmingham said. “I think he’s a professional baseball player. But he never created bat lag in his swing. And so he never really took off like I think he can take off. I think the kid can play in the big leagues, but he has to learn that part. He has great strength. He has light tower power.”
A two-time New Mexico Gatorade player of the year, Mang had what would be a pretty solid season as a freshman — in most programs. He hit .291 with three home runs and 30 RBI.
For the Lobos, however, where team batting averages are routinely well north of .300, all that gets you is an invitation to work harder and smarter.
“I think I put a lot of the pressure on myself,” Mang said. “I think I put a lot of the pressure on myself to succeed right away. It didn’t exactly happen the way I wanted it to.”
So he said he’s tried to listen to the coaches and buy into what they’re telling him.
“I’ve tried to have a better mental approach to a lot of things,” Mang said. “You can work on the physical stuff all the time, but sometimes it’s the mental stuff that’s a lot harder to focus on because you can’t work on it all the time. I’m just trying to be more positive and work harder, and get my swing mechanics right so I have a better chance to succeed.”
When he first got to UNM, Mang had a tendency to let his swing fly open, Birmingham said, opening his shoulders too quickly and letting the barrel of the bat get out in front of his hands.
“That works against bad pitching,” Birmingham said. “But guess what? You’re playing college ball now and you’re not going to see bad pitching. He had to fail first before he would listen. They all do.”
Mang still falls into his old habits on occasion, the coach said.
“He doesn’t understand because he hits around the baseball. Once he learns the mechanics of a good swing and can repeat them, he’ll be an All-American and he’ll be a big draft pick,” Birmingham said.
Mang said he understands what he needs to do and is trying to implement it regularly.
“What he’s done for hitters over the years speaks for itself,” he said of Birmingham. “He knows the right things to push to get us going in the right direction. I’m just trying to take in as much of that as I can, and try to put it into action. He’s always there trying to get us to make this right and trying to execute it.”
As for the future, Mang said he’s not thinking about the Major Leagues just yet, but is instead focused on helping the Lobos reach their goal: a trip to Omaha, Neb., for the College World Series.
“We’re trying to win every day and those conference games are especially important,” he said. “It puts us in a good place if we keep winning conference games. It’s hard not to think about Omaha. Everybody wants to get there. I don’t think there’s a guy in there that would tell us that we can’t get there.”