Long Beach State couldn’t have drawn a more daunting assignment on opening day. The Dirtbags were on the road facing reigning national champion Mississippi State at Dudy Noble FIeld, one of the most intimidating venues for opposing teams in all of college baseball. And the Dirtbags were up against first-team preseason All-American Landon Sims, who ranked No. 1 on our list of college baseball’s top 150 starting pitchers heading into the season.

And Sims was dealing. The Mississippi State righty racked up 13 strikeouts without issuing a walk over seven innings of one-run ball.

“I told [MSU coach] Chris [Lemonis], that was as good as I’ve seen a college pitcher since probably Stephen Strasburg. He’s the real deal,” Long Beach coach Eric Valenzuela. 

But for all of Sims’ greatness, he took the loss Friday night — because Long Beach State righthander Luis Ramirez managed to be even better.

Ramirez went about it differently — he struck out just five over his six innings of work, relying instead upon the incredible movement on his elite low-90s sinker to rack up groundball outs. Ramirez held Mississippi State’s explosive offense hitless over those six shutout frames, and when the Dirtbags finally broke the scoreless tie on Kaden Moeller’s solo homer in the top of the seventh, Ramirez picked the victory.

“That was a lot of fun, that was a great college game,” Valenzuela said. “Two big leaguers going at each other. It was pretty cool.”

Of course, this wasn’t the first time Ramirez had faced Mississippi State. In 2020, as a true freshman, Ramirez took the ball in a Sunday rubber game at Blair Field and delivered seven innings of two-run ball to lead LBSU to a 6-2 win against the Bulldogs. Ramirez wound up making just one more start that season before the pandemic shut everything down; he finished with a line of 2-0, 2.73 with 27 strikeouts against eight walks in 26.1 innings. It was a short sample size, but Ramirez showed his new coaching staff that he was for real during that four-week run, validating the coaches’ already high hopes for him.

“We inherited him as a freshman. When i got the job, communicating with all those incoming guys, I had heard a lot about him. From the get-go he was a guy that we could tell right away was gonna be a real guy for us,” Valenzuela said. “He started as a true freshman with Adam Seminaris and Alfredo Ruiz in the rotation. I think guys like Adam really helped him as that true freshman.”

And then Ramirez’s developmental process took something of a detour, along with the rest of the Dirtbags. Long Beach State was not permitted to gather as a team for fall ball in 2020 due to local COVID restrictions, and LBSU’s spring preseason was also delayed and limited. He put together a solid campaign anyway in 2021, going 4-4, 4.27 in 11 starts, but it was a battle.

“He comes in as a sophomore, and he doesn’t have a fall, and he basically doesn’t have any work in the spring. He has four weeks to prepare for his season last year,” Valenzuela said. “So you talk about the limited development he’s had up until this year, where he’s had a full fall, and that’s where he’s really kind of made that jump, basically having a full fall and spring training before our season. This is where he’s really grown. You can work on your own, but this is why they come here, to be around a throwing program and be structured. So that’s why you’re seeing these guys really grow and get better.”

A strong summer in the Cape Cod League last year was also part of Ramirez’s growth process. He showed the makings of a quality four-pitch mix in the Cape, but his stuff has ticked up this spring. Valenzuela said Ramirez sat 92-94 mph with that darting two-seam fastball throughout his six innings in Starkville, and he’s capable of dialing his four-seamer up to 95-96. The fastball tunnels well with his slider — as Pitching Ninja Rob Friedman demonstrated this weekend — and he also has very good feel for a solid-average changeup that he can throw in any count, as well as a useful downer curveball, though he didn’t use it in Week One.

But that devastating sinker is Ramirez’s calling card, the pitch that really gives him a chance to be special this season and in professional ball.

“It’s hard to teach it, it really is. it’s not like he came to Long Beach and I showed him to pitch that way, that’s just how he is,” Valenzuela said. “Luis’ arm action and what his ball does, we have a couple guys that do that, but also a couple other guys who, their fastball is straight as an arrow. For Luis it’s just natural. He’s had that sink, and as he’s gotten stronger and bigger and more power, higher velocity, that sinker that he had coming in as a freshman has turned into a power sinker. He also throws a four-seam that when you’re sitting on that sinker, he’ll throw that four-seamer 93-94 and it’ll be by you. He’s very intelligent on the mound, he knows what he wants to do. I call pitchers for him but he’ll shake it. He knows what he wants to do with each at-bat and each pitch.”

And Ramirez’s mound presence goes well beyond his understanding of pitch sequencing. He has a stoic, composed demeanor no matter the situation, and unwavering tenacity. Ramirez is a natural fighter.

“He’s just built that way, he really is. He’s a great story. He doesn’t say much, he just works and he’s a tough kid, and the players really respect him. And when he gets on the mound he’s just a competitor,” Valenzuela said. “I think a lot of it obviously is his background, he comes from a tough area. He grew up in East LA. His parents, they go back and forth from Mexico, where they also have family there. He’s had to really grow up really fast. I know his high school coach, he was like a second father figure as well. On the recruiting process, he had to help him with the English part of it and paperwork. He’s had to really grow fast and be an adult since he was in high school.

“He’s not a big rah-rah guy, he’s the opposite of [LBSU closer] Devereaux Harrison. And you need both. Luis is the opposite, under control all the time, doesn’t say much, but you get him in the circle and that’s where he shines.”

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