Ep. 5: 'Baseball and Magic'

As the Carolina League All-Star break rolled around on the 2019 season, things were going great for Cole Uvila. His Down East Wood Ducks had dominated the Carolina League, winning 50 of their 70 games to take the first-half crown and clinch a playoff berth in the process. Cole had finished strong as well. He had worked on the issues that had been bothering him -- his command, his pitch selection -- and had some good momentum heading into mid-June. In his last seven appearances before the break, he’d allowed just one earned run across 10 innings, striking out 12.

But now, as he headed home to Seattle for a brief break, it wasn’t going to be a vacation. He was returning to Driveline Baseball to get back on their mound and fine tune some things. Of all the different factors that had played a role in Cole reaching this point in his career, perhaps nothing – aside from his own determination – had had a bigger impact than Driveline had.

“I guess Driveline has a lot of missions," Cole says, "but specifically what started Driveline was the idea that baseball players can be trained and created, not just, that they're born with 100-mph arm.”

So Cole returned to Driveline with a very specific mission: He wanted to turn his curveball from merely a complement to his fastball into a dangerous weapon.