Rounding the Bases with Michael Gurka

HIT & RUN

Major: considering Business & Marketing with a minor in finance
Favorite class at the U: History 1302 - "From 1860-Present"
Favorite athlete: Justin Verlander or Walker Buehler
Favorite book: The Great Gatsby or Freakonomics
Favorite actor: young Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio
Favorite hobby: fishing
Favorite musical artist: Luke Combs and John Mayer
Favorite TV show: Ballers and Entourage
Favorite pro team: Milwaukee Brewers
Favorite meal: mom's chicken enchiladas
Favorite Gopher sporting event: hockey
Biggest fear: snakes
Biggest pet peeve: losing
Hidden talent: dancing
Person you'd most like to meet: Brooks Koepka
Dream vacation spot: St Andrews, Scotland
Resolution for 2020: better nutrition

TEAM SUPERLATIVES

Top spring practice performer: Max Meyer and J.P. Massey
2020 breakout pick: J.P. Massey and Chase Stanke

Best personality in the dugout: Patrick Fredrickson
Hardest-working: Chase Stanke
Most competitive: Sam Thoresen
Most studious: Danny Kapala or Bubba Horton
Biggest prankster: Drake Davis
Best nickname: Pork (Kyle Bork)
Build the ultimate five-tool player: Max Meyer (arm), Jordan Kozicky (glove), Easton Bertrand (power), Steve Jamroziak (speed), Zack Raabe (contact)

GopherSports.com met with each of Minnesota's 12 newcomers to discuss their life before the U and gather the inside scoop for the 2020 season, continuing this week with freshman right-handed pitcher Michael Gurka.

Gurka, a 2019 graduate of Joliet Catholic Academy in Illinois, comes to the Maroon and Gold as a three-sport letterwinner in high school. While at Joliet Catholic, the righty lettered in baseball, football and golf.

On the diamond, Gurka was ranked as a top-500 player nationally coming out of high school by Perfect Game, receiving Preseason All-American honors as a senior in 2019. Prior to his senior season, the Clarendon Hills, Ill. native dominated across 34 summer innings for the Top Tier Americans, registering a 1.58 ERA and 47 strikeouts – translating to a ridiculous 12.4 K/9.

As a senior, Gurka kept rolling en route to a 1.31 ERA come season's end. He spent the summer refining his craft with the Western Nebraska Pioneers of the Expedition League, where he played against elite collegiate competition in advance of his first season with the Gophers.

GopherSports.com: Why did you choose to attend the University of Minnesota?
Gurka: "Whenever coaches called me, they would ask, 'what are you looking for in a school?' One of my main points was to get out of Illinois. Where I wanted to go for college was somewhere outside Illinois so I could get away and experience a different place. I'm actually super excited Minnesota came calling, because I realized it's a perfect ways away and still not far enough to where I've lost track of home. It's the perfect balance."

GS: Talk about the experience of pitching in the Expedition League this past summer.
Gurka: "While I was there I was kind of trying to familiarize myself with this new area, this new kind of experience. It was really difficult at first being this 17-year-old kid and some of my teammates are 24-year-old seniors in college. I've never played with guys that old that have college experience, but I learned quickly that the game moves faster. You have to be more on point with every single pitch. There's no wasted pitches. It was the best decision I made going into college. I learned how to be more independent and on my own, not relying on my parents so much anymore. Baseball-wise and socially, it was a really good experience looking back on it. I still keep in contact with a lot of the guys. I learned that walks do kill you. I think I might have lead the leagues in walks."

GS: When did you start playing baseball?
Gurka: "I started playing when I was around six or seven. It was all my best friends in Little League and my town was a very close group of people. Playing tee ball, all the teams were coached by the dads and I remember my dad coaching me. I can't remember ever stopping at any of the bases. I would hit it and I would always run around and get a home run. Those are my earliest memories of walking two blocks on a summer day in the morning going to play a game."

GS: When did you set your sights on playing collegiately?
"My summer team, Top Tier out of Chicago, produces up to 50 college guys a year. When I first started playing for them when I was 13, I was a short, fat kid on the bottom team with my best friend. At that point, I thought college baseball would be awesome, but I thought since I was on the third team I wasn't that good. Next year, I make the B team. I start getting a little taller, start thinning out, start being able to move like a baseball player. The next year it's my 15U summer, so I'm going to be a sophomore and I make the top team. We make the national tournaments and I didn't know where that would take me. It was around my sophomore year when I made varsity that I realized I had a chance to play Division I if I really worked hard."

GS: What would you say is your biggest strength on the field and what is one possible area of improvement?
Gurka: "Consistently, I think I've shown that I can work around the strike zone with all my pitches. Obviously, there are guys with more velocity and with better stuff. I think right now my biggest strength is competing around the zone with all my pitches and being a consistent strike-thrower. Getting guys off-balance is my biggest strength. While you're pitching, it's important to put your body in good rhythm and position to make every pitch consistently and to throw harder. I've been picking Sam Thoresen's brain because he tells me I pitch a lot like him when he was a freshman. It's doing little movements that are better with your body that I never knew of. It's working all the small things and picking up whatever I can from the older guys."

GS: What are your thoughts on being consistently chosen as the "most competitive" player on the team?
Gurka: "I think it's more beyond baseball, it's just everyday life. They seem to pick up that I really just want to beat everyone and it's not against anyone in specific, it's just that winning mentality. I think that was instilled in me by playing a lot of different sports growing up."

GS: What is your favorite part of being a Gopher so far?
Gurka: "Definitely the way we interact as a team. I've talked to so many guys from different schools and it seems like we have the best family team aspect of anyone I've talked to. We're all friends. We're all joking around in the locker room. I think Josh Culliver said it best: 'We see each other more than our own families.' This freshmen class will be my best friends for the rest of my life. I can already tell."

GS: Do you have any game day rituals or superstitions?
Gurka: "I always do the same routine. We talk a lot about having a routine and everyone's is different. It's the way I play catch. I take longer than anyone because I have to make sure I throw from every distance to feel my arm out. Especially in the bullpen, I go three fastballs, three changeups, three sliders, three curveballs and then stretch. During the game, I just adapt to what I'm doing."

GS: What is the most memorable moment from your baseball career?
Gurka: "It was in high school and we were playing Marist. It was No. 1 versus No. 2 in the state. I'm starting and I have a decent outing. I go five innings and I give up two runs. They put in their pitcher who can throw like 95 [mph]. I get pulled after the fifth and we're losing, 4-2. I was on an 18-game hitting streak, because I hit eighth and I get all fastballs and I pepper them to right field. I get a base hit to center field and that started this rally and we start to come back. My best friend slides into home plate and the catcher steps on his fingers. It just got really chippy from there. We tie it at four runs, so we go into extras and we end up winning."

GS: Who has been the biggest influence on your athletic career?
Gurka: "My parents from an early age. But now that I'm this far advanced, I have to thank Ryan Quigley, who was my high school pitching coach and also my personal pitching coach since I was eight or nine-years-old. He played professionally with the Padres for eight years. I still keep in contact with him because he is so advanced in the analytical side of baseball."

GS: What do you see your role being this upcoming season?
Gurka: "Definitely not a starter. Not taking anything away from myself, but if you look at our staff, wow. It's so impressive. I see myself as a fireman, which means I can come in at any point and get outs. I see myself as a middle-to-late game guy that gets you to a closer. I'm fine with giving an inning in a weekend, but if they need me to give them three, I can do that. I feel like I come in as a very versatile utility guy. Anywhere in relief right now as a freshman."

GS: What are your goals for the upcoming 2020 season?
Gurka: "Whenever it is that I come in, I did whatever was asked of me. If they ask me to come in with runners on first and second with one out – that I get a groundball double play to get out of the inning. Maximizing my amount of innings while still giving quality innings."

GS: What are your aspirations for after college ball?
Gurka: "Hopefully, to be drafted. Getting drafted or to play as long as possible. I'm going to have a real worldview when that comes and how that opportunity actually lives up to playing Major League Baseball. So, it's to perform as best as I can in the classroom and get a degree in a meaningful area and then use my baseball world to get a good job, hopefully in the finance department of a Major League team."

GS: Do you have any advice for aspiring youth athletes?
Gurka: "It's the extra time you put in that's going to make you great. I could have been done after our after-school lifts, but I would drive home and go to another facility to work on body movement and throwing. And then I would lift after that, twice a day. Take every day by itself and focus on the present. Put in more effort than the person next to you."

GS: Who are you looking forward to playing against the most?
Gurka: "Texas Tech, because my best friend is the shortstop there. And Illinois. I know a lot of people on the roster."

GS: What has the overall experience of being a Division I student-athlete been like so far?
Gurka: "It's so different than being a college student, because at the dorms I am friends with people who aren't athletes and we do so many things different than they do. Everyone's a great student here, but it's being able to give up the other things in college. I go to class, come to Bierman and I'll eat and then I'll have a meeting or practice. Then it's a lift and then I have to eat and have tutoring and then homework. Then wake up the next day and do it all over again. I wouldn't trade it for the world."

GS: What type of impact has the coaching staff had on you so far?
Gurka: "Definitely some of the most influential people in my life so far, even just being a freshman. [Head coach John Anderson] just has this way about him where he just seems angelic. You take everything he says as so meaningful and in such a powerful way that you remember it and think about it for the rest of the day – rest of the week even. You hear all the stories about him, but when you play under him you never want to take any of the time for granted. [Pitching coach Ty McDevitt] is probably one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life in anything, not even just baseball. He just takes in so much info and retains it and he can talk about it and know about it. It's super impressive."

GS: What is your bold prediction for the 2020 season?
Gurka: "We're not going to lose a series in the Big Ten. Maybe outside of the Big Ten because we have some of the best opponents in the nation, but we're not losing a series in the Big Ten. We are going to be really successful. Another bold prediction – Max Meyer is going to do something crazy hitting-wise, like bat .300."

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Players Mentioned

Easton Bertrand

Kyle Bork

Drake Davis

Patrick Fredrickson

Michael Gurka

Bubba Horton

Steve Jamroziak

Danny Kapala

Jordan Kozicky

J.P. Massey

Max Meyer

Zack Raabe

Chase Stanke

Sam Thoresen