Morgalis’ personal goal is consistency—perhaps as a safeguard to maintaining a prominent place in the rotation.

“I feel like if there was one thing at Notre Dame they could have really said, ‘Okay this is why you’re not playing,’ is because one day I did really well, and the next day I did so-so,” Morgalis says. “I just want to stay pretty good so there’s no reason why I can’t play.”

Instrumental to staying consistent will be control over his pitches and using all three to keep batters honest. According to Walsh, Morgalis boasts the ability to get ahead of hitters with any pitch and then deploys a very Maddux-esque method of reading batters. “He can see hitters’ tendencies,” Walsh said. “A lot of times catchers pick it up—Mike seems to pick up right away with the guy’s swing, ‘Hey I can bust him inside,’ or ‘he’s looking to pull, we’ll go away on him for a while.’ Very smart guy on the mound.”

The addition of such a smart pitcher helps cushion the blow from the departure of staff ace Ben Crockett ’02.

“He’s going to do wonders for our pitching staff if he stays healthy this year,” captain Barry Wahlberg says. “He has the potential to be, I think, an All-Ivy type candidate. He’s a guy that battles, a guy that doesn’t give up.”

“I can’t say enough about the kid personally, how smart he is and how much he respects the game,” Wahlberg adds.

Morgalis started the season impressively, allowing just two runs in seven innings against Holy Cross in the Crimson’s opening day 3-2 win. But Morgalis has struggled since then, getting torched for six runs on six hits in a 10-2 drubbing by Rutgers on March 21 and then surrendering five runs in 4.1 innings in a 10-9 loss against No. 13 Miami on March 27.

His first win finally came in last weekend’s Ivy opener. In a solid showing, Morgalis allowed three earned runs over 5.2 innings in an 11-6 victory over Penn.

Northeast by Midwest

Raised in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash, Morgalis began playing tee-ball at age six. He became exclusively a pitcher by the time he reached Sycamore High School, but his competitive streak had been established well before then.

Morgalis’ motto can be summed up with a t-shirt he wore in second grade, which proclaimed “If I can’t win, then I won’t play.”

“When I was 10, we were in a tournament, and I was pitching,” Morgalis recalls of his local team. “My team made like six errors in a row, and we were getting crushed, and my coach wouldn’t take me out. So I call time, put the ball on the mound, and walked into the dugout. I just couldn’t take it.”

While pitching, Morgalis keeps loose on the mound by singing to himself and stays focused between innings by not talking to his teammates. But as intense as he is about baseball, the first word Morgalis picks to describe himself is goofy. After getting rocked by major leaguers during a game between the Fighting Irish and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, he describes his performance as “a little shaky” with a grin.

“They hit the ball a long way,” he said. “I think I gave up four runs in two-thirds of an inning. It was so much fun.”

With such a wicked sense of humor, Morgalis considers holds no topic sacred.