Georgia Tech reliever Mason Patel is having the best season of his career

“A big thing as to why I’m having the success I’ve had is really just this is my second time around healthy. Every offseason it’s been, ‘Let’s try to get back to where I was,’” Patel told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “There’s never been a point in my college career to where it’s like, ‘Now I can put my foot on the pedal.’ That’s helped me have success this year.”

Patel came to Atlanta in 2020, not to Tech, but across town at Georgia State. He was a self-described soft-tossing and off-the-radar right-hander out of Knoxville, Tennessee, who took a mature approach when evaluating himself as a recruit.

‘An under-the-radar guy’

The son of Indian immigrants, Patel spent his entire childhood in Knoxville. He started playing baseball around the age of 4 or 5 and grew up competing in basketball and football as well, then later golf and tennis. He prides himself these days on being Tech’s top table tennis player (in his own estimation).

Patel’s youth baseball career included playing for local travel teams and tasting a bit of individual success — he once competed in the Golden Arm Challenge in Cooperstown, New York. But with his high school career on the horizon, Patel knew he needed to up the competition level, so he joined many of his local teammates by playing on ballclubs based in Cobb County.

That decision paid off in more ways than one.

“I’d like to think I was an under-the-radar kind of guy, a late bloomer. Never really threw hard coming up,” Patel said. “I knew my strengths. I was gonna throw all my pitches in the zone at any time. When I started playing baseball down here and started seeing better talent and still having success against those guys, that’s when it kind of clicked for me.

“What really helped me is when I started playing with Georgia teams, my teammates were committed (to colleges), so it was like I’m pitching, they’re (scouts) all coming to watch these guys, but they have to watch me. Knowing that, that kind of fueled me more.”

Patel fielded recruiting calls from Arkansas, South Carolina and Vanderbilt, and his first offer was from the hometown program at Tennessee. He also had plenty of interest from mid-major programs as he began his prep career at the Webb School of Knoxville.

The realization began to materialize for Patel, however, that pitching for a major program in a major conference may equate to being a small fish in a big pond. Would he get cut after his fall semester as a freshman? Would he have to redshirt? How many opportunities to take the mound would he truly get?

“At the end of the day, all those guys would tell me, ‘We love you, you throw strikes, you look like you’re a competitor, but you haven’t checked the 90 (mph) box. That’s the one box,’” Patel said. “Later on, I kind of understood where I was at as a player. I had some good mentors, I’d ask ‘em, ‘Is it worth it to go to a bigger school and play the odds?’ Not saying I didn’t believe in myself, but it’s just how can I avoid anything like that?”

Matt Taylor is in his second season as Tech’s pitching coach. Before he joined the Jackets, Taylor was the pitching coach at Georgia State.

And it was on a Monday when Taylor left Atlanta and headed north to spend the day with Patel in Knoxville. Then a high school senior, Patel was planning to throw only between 25-30 pitches during a bullpen session.

“Spent the whole day with him and his family. Ended up bringing him down on an official visit in the fall,” Taylor recalled. “Him, his mom, his dad, his brother, I’ve known them now for like six years. It’s been the whole thing coming full circle.”

Taylor’s commitment to getting to know Patel paid off and Patel pledged to the Panthers in September 2019 just months before his senior season, a season which never happened because of COVID-19. And that footnote is key here because it meant Patel didn’t pitch to any live competition in the spring of 2020.

And since he spent much of the summer in Chicago with family waiting out the pandemic, he admits he arrived in Atlanta in the fall of 2020 unprepared physically for the rigors of baseball at the college level.

Still, Patel got off to a solid start his freshman season. Even after giving up a game-winning home run against West Virginia in his Georgia State debut, Patel rebounded to throw four innings against Georgia and hold the Bulldogs to three earned runs. He also struck out six and worked around two earned runs in an outing against Kentucky.

On March 9, 2021, Patel pitched six scoreless innings and struck out eight in a start at Russ Chandler Stadium against the Jackets. He allowed four hits, all singles, and walked only one en route to being named the Sun Belt Conference’s pitcher of the week.

Feeling a bit snakebit

One of the factors that drew Patel to State was that he knew that the Panthers’ schedule in 2021 included West Virginia, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky and Clemson, all teams he once thought he might be able to play for but now would get to pitch against.

Fate had other plans.

After the start against Kentucky, Patel felt some pain in his right elbow. That pain would eventually be diagnosed as a low grade ulnar collateral sprain and meant Patel wouldn’t pitch for the rest of the season.

Patel would make just 12 appearances during the 2022 season with five of those being starts. He finished his sophomore year with an ERA of 3.54, 29 strikeouts in 28 innings and a .241 batting average against. It was, Patel thought, a good restarting point for what he hoped would be a standout junior year.

Patel made three starts at the outset of the 2023 season. But then:

“Wednesday, after practice, I get back to our house. I was about to cook,” Patel said. “I go get a chef knife and I go to clean it and cut my (right) thumb in half. I was looking at it and thinking maybe it’s not that bad. Maybe I’ll just need stitches. After the blood stopped, I tried to move my thumb. I couldn’t move it. I couldn’t extend it. I had 100% torn my extensor tendon in my thumb. That day was horrible.”

After missing the remainder of the 2023 season, Patel decided maybe it was time for a change. He felt, half joking, a bit snakebit, having endured two season-ending injuries (both of which happened at the same time on the calendar) in three seasons with the Panthers.

Taylor, meanwhile, had left Georgia State in 2022 and went across town to become the assistant pitching coordinator for the Braves. He then joined Danny Hall’s staff at Tech in the summer of 2023 and saw a familiar name in the NCAA’s transfer portal.

Patel said his move from State to Tech just made sense. He would get to work with Taylor again and remain in the city he considers a second home. He wouldn’t have to go somewhere else and start from scratch with an unfamiliar pitching coach.

But the on-field results were, well, not good. Patel was touched up for 33 earned runs in 36 innings over 14 outings in 2024. Opponents hit .362 against Patel in his first season with the Jackets.

“He didn’t have a fall last year (in 2023). We’ve seen it a lot with guys, if they miss the fall, a lot of times they struggle in the spring because you’re first live action is this,” Taylor said, motioning to Russ Chandler Stadium.

Added Patel: “I think just a learning curve. Just understanding that this is really, really high-level baseball. In terms of facing a lineup, when you’re in the Sun Belt, the majority of teams, 7-8-9 (hitters), you’re able to beat ‘em. So just having the mindset of understanding that everybody in the ACC lineup is capable of being someone else’s three-hole. Just kind of taking the intent and focus up another notch coming into this year had really helped.”

A Spanish major, Patel, on Wednesday, was named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association stopper-of-the-year award watch list. He throws a four-seam fastball, sinker, circle change and curveball, the latter of which is new to his arsenal. He has also been working on a cutter.

The change-up is the key, he said, and knowing hitters are looking for that pitch helps him even more when cycling through his pitch selection.

Tech has carved a role for Patel that has helped him flourish, too. He’s a reliever averaging more than three innings per outing and having thrown at least four innings five times.

Patel’s successes have been a pleasant surprise even to those who had the utmost belief in him all along.

“He’s throwing 2 miles an hour harder than he’s ever thrown. When you’re a guy with the off-speed that he has and you can gain velocity, it’s gonna make everything even better,” Taylor said. “It’s been really, really cool to watch and I don’t think any of us expected what he’s doing right now.”

Patel hopes to remain in the sports industry when his playing career comes to an end. He hopes that isn’t any time soon, especially since he feels he has so much more to give.

“Going through those (injuries) definitely sucked a lot,” Patel said. “But I embrace it. It’s a part of who I am and how I’ve gotten here,”