Alum in World Series

The Progressive Field visitors' locker room was celebratory mayhem. With music blaring, teammates dancing and bottles popping, Tim Mayza '18, his American League champions t-shirt soaked with champagne, couldn't help but step away from his teammates' revelry to take in the moment. Four months earlier, his future as a professional pitcher was in doubt. But in the early hours of Oct. 18 in Cleveland, he was a member of baseball's most famous organization, the New York Yankees, and his future is a clash with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

Locker room celebrations should be old hat to Mayza. He reached the playoffs in 2022 and 2023 with the Toronto Blue Jays-the team that drafted in out of Millersville in 2013. The Yankees donned their ski goggles and sprayed champagne after clinching a playoff berth in September, after winning the American League East, and again after beating the Kansas City Royals in the American League Division Series. But following the 2024 season that Mayza endured, he's not taking any celebration for granted.

"(I am) enjoying what the team has been able to accomplish," said Mayza. "For me personally, you remember the ride of the season. It's been a wild year."

That's putting it lightly. At the end of June, Mayza wondered if his seventh season in the big leagues would be his last. The 2023 season was Mayza's best as a reliever, setting career highs in innings pitched (53 1/3) and appearances (69) while posting a career-best 1.52 ERA. He'd been the Blue Jays' most reliable reliever for years, ranking among the franchise's all-time leaders in appearances and holds. But early in spring training, Mayza knew something was not right. The velocity of his trademark sinker, which averaged better than 94 miles per hour in 2023, routinely dipped below 92. His strikeout rate over the first few months of the 2024 season plummeted from 24.7 to 14.4. On June 28, his ERA swelled to 8.03. The next day, he was designated for assignment. One week later, the longest-tenured player in the Blue Jays organization was released.

Not even the shredding of his ulnar collateral ligament, Tommy John Surgery and 19 months of rehab could compare to the disappointment of being released by the Blue Jays.

"It was the lowest point," said Mayza. "In terms of performance, going through the designation and release, unsure of what the future held and what opportunities would come next."

For the first time since before his commitment to Millersville in 2010, Mayza's baseball future was in jeopardy. It didn't take long for other teams to start calling, however. Among the teams was division-rival and familiar foe, the New York Yankees. The Yankees, albeit adversarial, had long played a significant role in Mayza's career. The Yankees always seemed to be present for Mayza's few moments of professional misfortune. Mazya was pitching against the Yankees when his elbow ligament tore, ending his 2019 season. Mayza became the history book footnote by surrendering Aaron Judge's 61^st home run in 2022. It was the Yankees scoring five runs on five hits that effectively ended his tenure with the Blue Jays.

"It was ironic to sign with the team that you throw your last outing against," said Mayza. "But they saw the potential. You play a team like that in your division over and over again. They would know me as well as anyone after seeing me pitch over and over again. It made sense that they were interested. There was a match there and an opportunity for me to contribute."

Mayza pitched against the Yankees 41 times-facing them more than any other opponent. He knew the Yankees well, but it turned out that the Yankees knew Mayza better.

"The Yankees have experience in getting guys right, getting the most out of guys, pitch usage, mechanically," said Mayza. "It always felt like watching them that they had done a good job in finding what was wrong, fixing it and getting guys to take off. There was an opportunity for me that if I pitched well, they would take the best bullpen they could into the postseason, and they would give me a shot in the big leagues which was appealing."

The Yankees had a plan for Mayza. The organization shipped him to the spring training facility in Tampa for a week, running him through a pitching laboratory of video work, biomechanic scans, drills in the weight room and critics and alterations to every aspect of his delivery. After diagnosing and providing remedies, the Yankees moved Mayza to Scranton.

After seven seasons of chartered flights and world-class everything, Mayza found himself as a member of the Triple-A RailRiders. The return to the minor league grind was humbling, but it provided a necessary, "wake-up call," according to Mayza. More than that, it proved to be a blessing, both personally and professionally.

After a rocky four months on the road, Mayza played his home games a short, two-hour drives from his wife, Darian, and their two sons in Denver, Pa. He could see his family every Sunday evening and spend an entire Monday with them thanks to the built-in off day in the minor league schedule. When the RailRiders played a six-game series against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Mayza enjoyed a week with his wife and boys, commuting the 60-mile drive to Coca Cola Park in Allentown each day.

On the field, he benefited from routine, consistency and top-notch development provided by the Yankees. He made nine appearances from July 24-Aug. 13 and did not allow a single run over his last eight games.

"You get back to your roots," said Mayza of the minor league experience. "You get back to getting consistent work-put your head down, not worry about the distractions that happen, focus on the work to get back to the big leagues. I felt very goal driven-driven to make the changes, compete and perform…The Triple-A coaching staff was on the same page with the entire organization. There was communication for what I was working on and what they wanted to see."

After hurling a scoreless inning against the Buffalo Bison on Aug. 13, Mayza received the call. The Yankees needed bullpen reinforcements. He returned to the majors on Aug. 17 and fired a shutout frame in Detroit.

Mayza made 15 effective relief appearances for the Yankees and was rewarded with a spot on the postseason roster. He pitched the longest outing of his career-3 2/3 innings-against the Red Sox with his Millersville coach, Jon Shehan, sitting in the Yankee Stadium stands.

"His career has been built upon ebbs and flows of adversity and success," said Shehan. "This has been another example of him overcoming. Tim Mayza being Tim Mayza, figuring out a way to reinvent himself and be successful."

Mayza's velocity jumped by two miles per hour on average over the last two months. A 95.6 mph sinker that struck out Kansas City's Kyle Isbel in game two of the ALDS was the fastest pitch Mayza threw all season. He nearly topped it in the ALCS. A 95.4 mph sinker caused Guardians' All-Star Steven Kwan to weakly ground to second base, ending the sixth inning of game three. Mayza was back, pitching in pressure-packed moments on baseball's greatest stages, helping the Yankees inch closer to a 28^th world championship.

The tribulations of 2024 have hardened Mayza for this moment. As a reliever, he doesn't know when, or even if he'll pitch. Maybe he'll enter from the bullpen in a hostile Dodgers Stadium with bases loaded and the Yankees holding on to a late lead. Maybe he'll get the call for a lefty-lefty match-up against the other-worldly Shohei Ohtani, future hall of famer Freddie Freeman, or the red-hot Max Muncy. The Dodgers won an MLB-best 98 games and have been the betting favorite from the start of the season. They have three former MVPs in the lineup. The Dodgers are a challenge. Mayza can only prepare and seize every opportunity presented to him in the same way he went from winning an NCAA Atlantic Regional title at Clipper Magazine Stadium in 2011 to an American League pennant in 2024.

"The (Millersville) program holds such a high standard that you are prepared and practice the necessary things to compete in high pressure situations," said Mayza. "It's a little bit different of a scale going from Millersville to the World Series, but you are still implementing the same strategies to slow the heart rate."

Mayza recalls starting game three of the Division II World Series against Mount Olive as a true freshman. He'd never pitched in front of so many fans. The brand-new experience stirred up butterflies, yet he managed to retire the first seven batters of the game and pitch five shutout innings thanks to what he learned from Shehan and his staff. He's still using the same strategies in the MLB playoffs.

"We have mental goals for our pitchers," said Shehan. "Be able to compete when you don't have your A-game. Compete in the present moment. Have a plan for adversity and be able to deal with varying levels of pressure and intensity. Hopefully you get nerves in every game. When you pitch in the World Series in front of 50,000 fans and millions on TV, the butterflies might change, but you have to get them to a level where you can perform optimally. That's going to impact your performance in big games."

Those tactics have worked well, not just for the Marauders in May in the NCAA Tournament, but for Marauders in October. With Chas McCormick '17 and Mayza, a Marauder has played a role for three of the last five American League champions. McCormick won a ring in 2022. Now it is Mayza's turn. Shehan has won 597 games 16 seasons but seeing players who graduated from Millersville live out their dreams by competing against the best in the world is as special as it gets.

"Our program has been so blessed in so many ways," said Shehan. "You don't want to feel jaded. You have to take it all in. It may be the last World Series that we ever have a Marauder in. I'm going to do my best to take it in and enjoy it just like the first one."

Mayza knows how quickly baseball can be taken away: a freak injury, a dip in velocity, a lackluster performance. After his roller coaster season, he's relishing every win. He's celebrating every moment. He's four wins away from immortality with the New York Yankees, and the mindset that he embraced as a Marauder is what will get him there.

"We are still playing so being one of the last two teams left and having a chance to win a World Series is all you can hope for," said Mayza. "I have experienced a whole lot of emotion over the last six months from the lowest of lows and highest of highs. It's what this game will do to you. The lowest of lows is a learning opportunity…You focus on one pitch at a time. That holds true at any level."

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