Notre Dame pitcher Roman Kimball to transfer to South Carolina
On the same day Notre Dame baseball hired its new head coach, former VCU head coach Shawn Stiffler, the Fighting Irish lost an important arm and potential superstar in the making on the mound. Roman Kimball is reportedly heading to South Carolina, per John Whittle of TheBigSpur.com.
Whittle said Kimball informed the South Carolina coaching staff of his intention to transfer there Tuesday morning. Kimball was the second of five Notre Dame pitchers to enter the transfer portal after former head coach Link Jarrett left for Florida State. He is the first of them to go public with his next destination.
Kimball officially announced his decision on Instagram after Whittle’s report. He thanked Jarrett and former Notre Dame pitching coach Chuck Ristano for the opportunity to play for the Irish program for one season.
“Notre Dame will always hold a special place in my heart for the rest of my life,” Kimball wrote. “This decision was very hard for my family and I, and it is very hard to walk away from Notre Dame.”
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Kimball just went to Omaha with Notre Dame. The hard-throwing righty was an often-used piece in getting the Irish there for the third time in program history. In 17 appearances, Kimball had a 4-0 record with a 5.76 ERA. He had 32 strikeouts in 25.0 innings. It was evident early in the season Jarrett was attempting to groom Kimball into someone who’d be used in big situations later in his career, possibly even in the weekend rotation.
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This is a homecoming of sorts for Kimball, who played his final year of high school baseball for P27 Academy in Lexington, S.C. He had 84 strikeouts in 49 innings that season.
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New Notre Dame coach Shawn Stiffler is tasked with trying to get the four other Notre Dame transfer portal pitchers — rising sophomore Caden Aoki, rising sophomore Jack Findlay, rising fifth-year senior Alex Rao and rising sixth-year senior Austin Temple — to stay in South Bend.
Notre Dame is losing All-American Friday night starter John Michael Bertrand to graduation. Temple was the Irish’s Saturday starter. Jarrett came around on naming rising senior Liam Simon the Sunday starter, but he’s been listed on MLB Draft boards as a possible top-300 pick in next week’s draft. There’s a chance Stiffler won’t inherit any of Notre Dame’s weekend rotation.
If he’s only going to convince one of the portal pitchers to stay, it has to be Findlay. He did it all for Notre Dame in his first collegiate season, starting in eight of his 20 appearances while also recording four saves — all of which came in the NCAA Tournament. Findlay had a 6-2 record with a team-best 2.17 ERA. He struck out 54 batters in 49.2 innings and only walked 16.
