November 18, 2021

By J.P. Antonacci

Canadian Baseball Network

It was around the seventh inning that Connor Ambrogio decided this was his game to finish.

The right-hander from Brock University had cruised through five innings of Game 1 of the Ontario University Athletics baseball regionals in Niagara Falls last month, holding the McMaster Marauders to a single unearned run.

But in the sixth, Ambrogio felt his fastball command start to slip. He laboured through that frame, emerging re-energized for the seventh after his team put up four runs to take the lead.

At that point he could have called it a day. But the 21-year-old from Dorchester, Ont., said the thought never crossed his mind.

“After the seventh, you could see that I wanted to win,” Ambrogio said.

“A switch flipped and everything went back to the way it started at the beginning of the game.”

It took Ambrogio 120 pitches to finish the first nine-inning complete game of his young career, scattering five hits and a walk and striking out six as Brock won 4-1.

He said he was proud to do his part and save the Badgers bullpen for the rest of the two-day playoff tournament.

“The satisfaction just came from knowing I did whatever I could to help the team move to the next step.”

Badgers head coach Marc LePage was hardly surprised by the dominant outing, as Ambrogio had been his go-to guy all season.

“Ambrogio keeps the hitters off balance, throws strikes and fills the zone while working at a quick pace. He keeps our guys in the game,” LePage told Brock Athletics.

“It’s rare that he has long innings. Ambro is a dominant pitcher in this league.”

Ambrogio had thrown several seven-inning complete games earlier in the season, including a dominant 10-strikeout performance as part of a doubleheader sweep of Laurier in September. Before taking the ball in the playoffs, he had a message for LePage.

“I told him prior to the game that I didn’t want to come out under any circumstances,” Ambrogio said.

Throwing a complete game in the playoffs put Ambrogio in stark contrast to his major league counterparts, as MLB quality starts in October have become a rarity. In the World Series, it wasn’t until the final game that a starter – Atlanta’s Max Fried – even made it past the fifth inning.

Ambrogio made his big game possible by generating weak contact and keeping innings short. Though he threw 120 pitches – almost unheard of in the professional ranks – he said getting through the outing was chiefly a feat of mental endurance.

“For me, it’s not anything physically challenging to throw that many pitches,” he said. “It’s mainly how to keep my mind engaged for the length of the nine innings.”

That mental engagement starts well before first pitch. On start days, Ambrogio gets to the field early and doesn’t talk to anyone. His headphones stay in, with certain songs cued up for specific moments in his pregame routine.

“Ever since I was 17, I’ve had the same songs for the same part of the my warm-up, every single time,” he said.

Hearing the same music as he stretches, throws long toss and steps onto the bullpen mound helps him get in the right headspace.

“When I’m listening to music, this is game mode,” he said. “This is how I’m going to execute and this is what I’m going to do.”

With the beat of Wiz Khalifa’s “We Dem Boyz” still in his head, Ambrogio took the mound for his biggest start of the season – and promptly got into trouble.

“They came out prepared to hit,” said Ambrogio, who struggled against the top of McMaster’s order, stranding a pair of runners in the opening inning and throwing a few “stress pitches” earlier than expected.

“On a good day,” Ambrogio said, he is a four-pitch pitcher, mixing in curveballs and changeups along with a steady diet of fastballs and his “go-to pitch,” a slider he’ll throw in any count to batters on either side of the plate.

On this day, he was short-handed from the jump.

“In the bullpen, I abandoned the changeup. It just wasn’t feeling good at all,” said Ambrogio, who rode his three remaining pitches and eventually settled in.

“I found my groove probably around the third inning to the fifth. That was probably my best spot during the outing.”

He had yet to face McMaster this year, though he and his coaches had identified a few hitters to focus on. During the game, he watched how hitters reacted to his pitches to determine what to throw next.

“If they were late on a fastball, I’m not going to go and give them a slider that they can catch up with and put it down the line for a single,” he said.

Marauders leadoff hitter Anthony Polowick, Ambrogio’s former teammate from London, was a thorn in his side all game.

“His first at-bat, I didn’t think he was going to catch up to my fastball. Gave it to him and he singled the other way,” Ambrogio said.

Changing tack in their next showdown, Ambrogio threw Polowick what he thought was a solid slider.

“Somehow [he] made contact and got on base as well,” he said. “I had to figure out something to do with him.”

So he busted Polowick inside on his third at-bat, which finally yielded a weak ground ball.

“It’s like a game-long game of chess,” Ambrogio said of the mental side of pitching.

“I don’t like when people get hits off of me, but that gives me a challenge the next time to do something different and try to get that guy out.”

The Badgers put up a four spot in the sixth to give Ambrogio some breathing room.

“At the same time, the next inning for me was the most crucial,” he said.

“When your team gives you a lead, your job that next inning is to go out there and absolutely shut them down. We just put up four. We don’t want to let them back in the game.”

Ambrogio’s gem earned him Brock Athlete of the Week honours, but the Badgers ultimately fell short of advancing to the OUA championships, losing a rematch with McMaster in the regional finals.

And with Ambrogio in the fourth year of a sports management degree, that complete game could end up being his last at Brock.

“That thought has come across my mind,” he said. “And honestly, it was a good game to go out on if it is my last game.”

Combining the regular season and playoffs, Ambrogio threw 28 innings in 2021, with 29 strikeouts, a 1.29 ERA and 0.82 WHIP – a strong showing after missing 2020 altogether due to COVID-19.

He credited his coaches and Brock’s strength and conditioning program for keeping him in shape throughout the pandemic.

“I believe Brock has more to offer from a baseball program standpoint than most schools in Ontario. We are extremely grateful to have the coaches we have and the resources we have,” he said.

“And I was with the Majors all summer, so I got a lot of work in.”

Ambrogio played nearly a full season with his hometown Intercounty team, the London Majors, after he made a good impression on the club during the 2020 Legacy Classic exhibition game at Labatt Park Stadium.

That game during the first pandemic summer kept the venerable ballpark’s 144-year-long streak alive.

“I grew up watching the Majors. Just putting on the uniform before the game in the clubhouse was absolutely wild,” Ambrogio said.

“When I actually got in the game I was still shaking, because I knew this would be my opportunity to show what I could do to Roop (Chanderdat, Majors manager and GM).”

He acquitted himself well in a scoreless inning of work, earning an invite to be a call-up for the 2021 season. Ambrogio played weekday games with St. Thomas Tomcats 21U – London’s affiliated junior team – and spent weekends with the Majors, where he soaked up pitching lessons from veterans like Pedro de los Santos and Owen Boone.

“Just to see them compete every day and getting little bits of knowledge every time I came out to the field was probably the most beneficial thing I had all summer,” he said.

Ambrogio applied those lessons to his final OUA season, punctuating his collegiate career with a performance Brock baseball fans won’t soon forget.