Hodges Working to Regain Form on Mound

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In the fall of 2023, Bradley Hodges pitched as well as anyone on the University of Virginia baseball team, and he was projected to be a weekend starter last year.

But Hodges made only appearance for the Cavaliers in 2024. An elbow injury ended his season shortly after it began, and the 6-foot-1, 210-pound left-hander had Tommy John surgery on March 5, 2024.

“That’s just how the game works,” Hodges recalled Wednesday night at Disharoon Park. “It’s humbling.”

Months of rehabilitation followed his surgery. Hodges slowly increased his workload, and he returned to the mound March 11, pitching two innings in UVA’s 7-6 win over Maryland in Fredericksburg.

Hodges threw 34 pitches in that game, striking out three batters and walking two. He started again Wednesday night against Richmond at the Dish and threw 42 pitches. It wasn’t a flawless outing for No. 10—Hodges gave up three hits and three runs in 1.2 innings—but UVA head coach Brian O’Connor knows not to expect too much from Hodges too soon.

“It’s a process,” O’Connor said after No. 23 Virginia’s 6-2 loss to Richmond.

In the top of the second inning, UR had runners on first and second with two outs when its No. 9 hitter, Trevor Dosenbach, came to the plate. Dosenbach was batting .200 for the season, but he stroked a double that put the Spiders up 2-0, and Hodges’ day was done.

“I was hoping that he could get that guy out and we could start the [next] inning with somebody else,” O’Connor said. “But that didn’t work, and sometimes you’ve got to take chances, too, for them to grow. And Bradley will. It means a lot to him. And so we’ll continue to run him out there and give him opportunities to get us off to a great start, and hopefully, as the weeks move on, that pitch count grows and grows and he gets even sharper and sharper. Today, he threw better velocity than he has thrown in the preseason, so that’s encouraging. So there’s promising signs, and you just continue to build on that.”

Hodges, who struck out three and walked two, wanted to pitch better against Richmond (19-2), “but at the end of the day, I’m going to continue to wake up tomorrow and work on being my best,” he said.

A graduate of St. Johns Country Day School outside Jacksonville, Fla., Hodges is in his third year at Virginia. He made 19 appearances as a true freshman in 2023, with one start, and posted a 2-0 record, with a 4.32 earned-run average.

“It’s great to have him back,” UVA catcher Jacob Ference said. “He’s got some steps to make, obviously, but when he’s full-fledged I’m really excited to see what he can provide.”

Hodges said his teammates and coaches “have motivated me to get back out there and get healthy to compete and be my best self for this team. And seeing the energy that we bring at practice has also really helped motivate me to get back. But really I just want to get back out there and help this team.”

Patience is required, and that’s not a quality that comes naturally to Hodges. “I’m not really wired to sit back at wait,” he said, smiling. Still, Hodges knows that the Hoos could be playing into June, so there’s time for him to regain his form.

“I have that in mind, but I want to be out there for these guys, and competing for this team is something that I came here to do,” Hodges said, “and I want to do that to the best of my ability. And so that’s really the emphasis I’m putting on myself.”

His pitching arm feels different since the surgery, Hodges said, and that’s been a challenge for him. “But at the same time you have to kind of just get over it and be like, ‘OK, this is the reality now, and I’ve got to learn with this block of clay that I have.’ And that’s kind of been my mindset with this.”

Next up for UVA (12-7 overall, 3-3 ACC) is a three-game series with Duke (13-9, 2-4) at Disharoon Park. The teams are scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Friday, 4 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.

Virginia played in Berkeley, Calif., last weekend and took two of three games from ACC newcomer Cal. Whatever momentum the Hoos gained in that series, however, they lost Wednesday night.

The Spiders led 5-0 before the Cavaliers collected their first hit.

“We got beat by the better baseball team today,” O’Connor said. “In every facet of the game, they’re the better baseball team. They played a heck of a game, and congratulations to Richmond. They came in here and outplayed us in every facet of the game.

“Part of that is on me. I’m the leader of the program, and I am obviously not succeeding about getting our players ready to play every day and play tough, competitive baseball up to the Virginia baseball standards. So that’s on me. It’s not on our players. I own that. And so I take responsibility for it. And we’re going to just hopefully work and learn and get better. And our competitive spirit and our competitiveness in every phase of the game will get better, because I’m going to absolutely demand it. Because it’s not about winning and losing the ball game. It’s about being ready to play from pitch one. And we are not doing that … But I can promise you the effort will be better, because if it’s not, I’ll find the guys that will show up every day and play with the right intent that the standards of what this baseball program is built on. That’s what I owe everybody.”

Junior right-hander Ryan Osinski shined in relief for the Cavaliers, allowing no runs and no walks in his 3.1 innings, but the Spiders led 6-1 by the time he entered the game in the top of the sixth.

“Osinski’s hold was important to give us a chance, but we weren’t ready to play from the first pitch,” O’Connor said. “We [had] soft at-bats in the first four innings, and you can’t play the game that way. You don’t deserve to win when you play that way. Osinski certainly held them and gave us a chance, but you’ve got to do it from pitch one. You can’t turn it on and off in this game.”

Ference, who had two of his team’s eight hits Wednesday night, said the Hoos “just need to play tougher. We need to play with more intensity. We came out here the first five innings and really didn’t do anything with the bat … Something’s got to change. We can’t come out here and play like that. That’s not the foundation of this program.”

The Hoos’ red-eye flight from San Francisco to Dulles International Airport was delayed Sunday night, and the team didn’t get back to Disharoon Park until about 10:45 a.m. Monday.

“Everybody knows what the situation is with regards to the travel. I don’t know what kind of toll it takes,” O’Connor said. “It probably takes a bigger toll on a 53-year-old man than it does an 18-year-old year, but listen, that is what it is, and that does not in any way have anything to do with our effort [against UR]. We got home Monday morning, and this is Wednesday afternoon. Forty-eight hours has passed. I’m going to demand, no matter what the situation is, how many games we play, whatever it is, that we play with the right intent and the right intensity and effort.”

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