Year after year, San Diego State baseball head coach Jim Dietz wears out the sod from the dugout to the pitching mound. He calls on pitcher after pitcher, hoping they will be the one to get the team through the latest crisis. It’s not uncommon for Dietz to call on five or six pitchers a game.
Players are constantly getting warmed up in the bullpen, wondering who will be next to go in. Luckily, the pitchers have a confidant in pitching coach Rusty Filter, who can truly relate. Dietz raised his right arm and signaled for Filter 80 times while he played for the Aztecs 1987-90.
“I warmed up in the bullpen many more times than I actually got into the game,” Filter said. “I loved my role as a short reliever. I wanted to pitch every day, and with Coach Dietz I pretty much got the chance to do it.”
In 1990, Filter helped pitch the Aztecs to a Western Athletic Conference championship and a spot in the NCAA regional finals. But the Aztecs fell one game short of the College World Series, losing to host Stanford 6-2.
Filter finished his SDSU career 8-4 with a 3.74 ERA and 10 saves. His 80 appearances rank fourth all-time at Montezuma Mesa, and his 10 career saves rank him sixth.
“He’s a guy you can relate to because he has pitched in this program before,” said pitcher Justin Brunette, who is creeping up on Filter with 76 career appearances. “He’s been under Dietz as a player and worked with him as a coach, so he knows the system as well as anybody.”
The system is simple: Be ready to pitch at any time, and when you are called on, challenge hitters and limit the amount of walks.
“I want them to be tough when they are on the mound,” Filter said. “I want them to challenge people. They are going to get beat sometimes, but they have to deal with it and move on.”
The system seems to work. Nearly a dozen of Filter’s former prodigies are pitching professionally, including seven from last season’s squad. Filter himself was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 30th round in June 1990 and played a season at St. Catherine’s in the New York-Penn league.
“Pro ball is not for everybody, but I hope every one of the players gets to experience it,” Filter said. “But not many players make it, so that is why I make education the number one priority.”
Filter returned to SDSU after one season in the pros to continue his own education, and that is when he got his first taste of coaching. Dietz hired him as a student assistant and appointed him the junior varsity coach.
The JV team was made up of a bunch of walk-ons and guys who were looking for anywhere to play. The group barnstormed junior colleges around California and finished with a 30-7 record.
“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a coach,” Filter said. “But after the season with the JV team, I was hooked.”
He took a job as an assistant at Mission Bay High School for two seasons, but returned to SDSU when the pitching coach position opened up in 1993. Filter jumped at the offer to coach at his alma mater.
“I knew I would be around baseball somehow,” Filter said. “But I didn’t know I would step into a Division I program when I was just 24 years old.”
It didn’t take him long to bring the pitching staff some national prominence. After just three seasons at the helm, the pitching staff rated third in the nation with a 3.31 ERA last year and set a team strike-out record with 509.
“At the time, those records were important,” Filter said. “But that is not the reason we are here. We are here to win. I would have given up all that to have won a WAC championship and gone to regionals.”
To be a winner, he must make sure some 15 pitchers are mechanically and physically ready to get batters out. Filter spends many hours in the bullpen during practice as well as before and after games, breaking down a pitcher’s motion and release point to correct any error Filter might have observed during a game.
One of Filter’s recent projects has been to straighten out freshman Aaron Harang. The right-hander dominated early in the season, earning a spot in the starting rotation, but has struggled recently and subsequently has not been used much.
“We think we found a little hitch in his mechanics,” Filter said. “We are trying to iron it out, and once we do, he’ll be right back out there.”
Harang, like many other freshmen pitchers who come here, has never had the luxury of a pitching coach and loves having Filter around for advice. In fact, many players said they came to SDSU because Filter was coaching here.
“He’s definitely helped me a lot with my game,” Harang said. “He can spot the mistakes that I could never find.”
Filter’s love for SDSU and baseball keeps him out there, working long hours, helping to keep the Aztecs’ pitching tradition alive.
Dietz may have called on him to pitch 80 times during his playing career, but it was the 81st call Dietz made to make Filter coach that’s proven the most important.
