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By: JOHN CASPER JR. john.casper@lee.net
There is one thing Daniel Rohde is confident he can do better than his brother.
“I’m better at hitting righty than he is,” the junior-to-be at Winona Senior High School and member of the Winona VFW Buddies baseball team said.
He pauses. Then delivers the punchline.
“But he’s a lefty.”
He understands why people want to make the comparison. Bryan Rohde, a 2013 graduate of WSHS, led the Winhawks to a share of the Big Nine Conference and a spot in the Section 1AAA title game before heading to St. Cloud State on a baseball scholarship. The dominating left-handed pitcher was the 2013 Winona Daily News player of the year and helped the Buddies finish second in the VFW state tournament in 2011.
“He helps me out a lot, though,” said Daniel Rohde, who is a pitcher and corner infielder for the Buddies (5-7), who host the Winona Invitational today at Gabrych Park and Saturday at Loughrey Field. “Mechanics, pitching, just an encouragement to play. He tells me to have fun.”
They are similar people, Buddies coach Matt O’Brien said, but not similar players.
“I thought of Bryan as more of a finesse player,” O’Brien said. “Daniel is more of a physical player. Their personalities are similar, but the way they play the game is different.”
O’Brien said Daniel is a ahead of his brother at this point of their careers when it comes to hitting. He proved that in his second varsity game of the spring for the Winhawks, hitting a two-out solo home run in the bottom of the seventh to send a game with Owatonna to extra innings.
“That was a lot of fun,” said Rohde, who missed most of the season following knee surgery.
It won’t be the last time he hits a big homer, O’Brien said.
“He looks the part when you watch him,” he said. “He looks comfortable and locked in. You can tell as he continues to get older and grow, he’s going to hit a lot of balls out of the ballpark.”
He’s a pitcher, too, although Rohde will be the first to tell you he has work to do there.
“I just need to throw more strikes,” he said. “Mix in my curveball when I can.”
But younger brother will quickly admit he’s not like his older brother in that regard. He also doesn’t feel the pressure to replicate Bryan’s success.
“He’s more serious about baseball than I am,” Daniel said.
That may be the case now. But O’Brien isn’t so sure about the future.
“Bryan started taking it seriously when he saw how good he could be,” O’Brien said. “He really liked the challenge of getting better. I think Daniel will be there soon. Like Bryan, I don’t think he understands how good he can be, or the future he can have in baseball. Right now, I think he’s just kind of happy to be here and playing. But once he gets a little older and sees the fruits of his labor, I think he’ll take it more seriously.”
There are signs that’s already happening. O’Brien said Daniel is asking to come to practice early for more swings, more work, more opportunities to improve.
That’s the goal O’Brien and assistant coach Matt Cada set every year for the their team.
“We stress individual improvement,” O’Brien said. “We want to teach kids to play the game the right way.”
That’s the goal Rohde has in mind for this weekend. The Buddies play Northfield at approximately 7 p.m. today, then the Rochester Rockets at 9 a.m. Saturday and Mantorville at 3:45 p.m. Saturday.
“There’s a lot of games this week, a lot of opportunities to get better,” Rohde said. “We’re going to see some pretty good teams. Hopefully, we can put some stuff together.”
