Ventura College: For Blake Chiaramonte, a swing is worth a thousand words

Ventura, California —— Blake Chiaramonte is a man of few words.

Watch the Ventura College sophomore third baseman play and you understand why: his gorgeous swing is plenty loud enough to speak for him.

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The soft-spoken Moorpark native is coming into his own this spring for the Pirates, slashing .320/.365/.440 through his first 29 games entering Saturday with six doubles and three home runs. That’s a big change from what he’s been through of late, though, after a mid-year transfer during his freshman season from his original school of choice—Cal State University, Northridge—to nearby rival Moorpark College.

Chiaramonte then turned around and played sparingly for the Raiders in 2016, slashing a meager .215/.278/.215 in only 65 at-bats last year. Looking for a better shot at playing everyday with the hopes of bouncing back to another four-year school, the third baseman transferred again, this time to Don Adams’ Ventura program.

So far, so good.

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“You know, it just comes from working hard all the time,” Chiaramonte said of finally finding his collegiate fit. “It’s repetitive, but it takes time to find yourself, and I think a lot of finding myself came from the mental side of the game. As a high school player, I was young and I never really thought about the mental side. But as I got older, I started to watch the pros a little more. I saw the mental side a little bit more, and I started to feed off that.”

The mental side of the game is an intensely personal thing for any player—and doubly so for Chiaramonte, a notably quiet guy on a team filled with some pretty loud, boisterous personalities.

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But when he steps to the plate, one great swing so perfectly defines all that is good and loud about Blake Chiaramonte: quick, compact, balanced, and smooth, with a high finish and the ability to turn on any pitch, that swing will leave an impression on you.

And that swing, along with his broader approach at the plate, has developed from an aborted D-I fall semester, to that first JuCo try back home, to now a critical starting role for a ranked program here in Ventura.

True to form, it’s all centered on what Blake does best: more watching, less talking.

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“It’s just observation, really watching where I need to look based on how the pitcher is throwing our other guys,” Chiaramonte said about his approach this spring. “It’s as simple as taking things pitch by pitch, and having a plan in an at-bat. Watch the game, see what’s going on, see how they throw guys in different counts, and react.”

That’s a professional mindset, and Chiaramonte has the feel of a professional ballplayer already in his young career. The loud swing is one component (have I mentioned it’s gorgeous?), but the quiet confidence and self-aware maturity speak volumes for themselves, too.

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In other words, you might be looking at a D-I bounce-back candidate here in another few months’ time. Chiaramonte won’t go that far, though.

“I haven’t thought about anything for next year yet,” he said, shrugging. “I’m just trying to play baseball. Once you start thinking about off-the-field stuff, that’s when things don’t work out. You have to take everything pitch by pitch. You just can’t think about the past or future. You have to live in the moment.”

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To read our scouting report on Blake Chiaramonte, please click here.

To see Blake Chiaramonte’s Ventura College player profile, please click here.

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