Local pitcher’s gem makes history in Class A
Six-plus years ago, Domenic Mazza landed in Sporting Green headlines for his preternaturally powerful golf swing. He finished second in the World Long Drive Championship at age 16, smacking one qualifying-event drive a staggering 436 yards.
This week, Mazza returns for a strikingly different feat: pitching with guile in throwing a perfect game for the Augusta (Ga.) GreenJackets, a Giants Class A affiliate.
Mazza, who grew up in Concord and attended Clayton Valley High, spun his gem Tuesday night in Lexington, Ky. He threw 85 pitches, struck out nine batters and watched with relief as right fielder Sandro Fabian made a fabulous diving catch in the eighth inning and a nice running catch in the ninth.
“Right off the bat, I had some negative thoughts going through my head,” Mazza said of the eighth-inning line drive. “I thought it was going to drop, for sure. … That catch gave me a burst of energy and excitement.”
Mazza used the jolt of adrenaline to carry him through the remaining outs. And when the 27th and final batter lifted a harmless flyball to shallow center field, he had completed the first nineinning perfect game in South Atlantic League history, a 9-0 win.
His teammates mobbed him near the mound, pranced around the infield and drenched him with a tub of Gatorade. Mazza received about 80 congratulatory texts, plus a phone call from Giants general manager Bobby Evans.
“I’m still in a little disbelief,” Mazza said 24 hours later.
Back home in Concord, Steve and Lorrie Mazza were surprisingly calm. They purchased the MiLB app to watch Domenic’s games, so they hooked up their iPad to the television and sat on the couch, riveted, as their son unleashed a string of zeros.
“When (Fabian) made that diving catch,” Steve Mazza said, “I said to myself, ‘Something special is happening here.’ And it unfolded from there. It’s unbelievable.”
Domenic Mazza, now 22, leaned on power to make a splash in golf circles. But he’s not at all a power pitcher — rather, he’s a crafty lefty whose fastball tops out at 86 to 88 mph. He keeps hitters off balance with his slider, curveball and changeup.
The Giants selected Mazza in the 22nd round of the 2015 draft after he spent three years at UC Santa Barbara. He went 8-3 with a 3.93 ERA in 14 starts last season at Augusta; he’s 1-2 with a 3.48 ERA in four starts this season.
That includes his April 6 outing, for which he gained notice with one misplaced pitch. Mazza relinquished a home run to 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, now a New York Mets minorleaguer.
Tebow’s homer, naturally, commanded national attention — to the point where Mazza found himself doing numerous interviews, including an appearance on Dan Patrick’s radio show.
Tuesday night’s perfect game offered compelling evidence that Mazza made the right decision in spurning golf for baseball. He juggled both sports at Clayton Valley, often pitching on Tuesdays and skipping games on Thursdays (with the coach’s blessing) to play in a golf tournament.
Mazza turned down the $70,000 prize he earned in the Long Drive Championship, to retain his amateur status so he could play baseball in college. That was a tough decision, because he wanted to buy a Camaro to drive to school.
“I knew if I did choose golf, I would never be able to follow my passion with baseball,” he said. “I wouldn’t be like Tebow, where I could get it into at (age) 29. I definitely wanted to follow this passion first and make it as far as I can.”
Mazza rarely plays golf during baseball season, but he and his dad returned to Diablo Creek several times over the fall and winter. Domenic didn’t even bother to use his driver, because he bought a 3-wood, which he used to routinely hit the ball 350 yards.
“He still crushes it,” Steve Mazza said.
Once a long hitter, always a long hitter.