Possible reasons why La Stella Is Underrated
Tracing his career, I wonder if we can get to the root of why so many people are dubious about his upside.
Going back to 2011, it sounds like he dealt with a really painful back problem:
Back in February, Tommy La Stella was hitting .125 and was dealing with a sharp pain in his back.
Now the former St. Joseph star from Closter is hitting .407 and afflicting a lot of pain on pitchers trying to contain Coastal Carolina, the 26th-ranked team in the country.
His pain originated from the facet point in his back. It started about a week before the season, and he eventually had a medial branch block performed to burn the nerve heads in that area in an effort to quell the pain.
"It’s kind of been an ongoing thing for me all year," La Stella told The Sun News of Myrtle Beach, S.C. "It started with the right side, now it’s on the left side. But I’ve had some treatment on it. I’m taking care of it as best I can with the trainer and I’ve kind of minimized the pain. It’s definitely something I can tolerate, so it’s not really an issue."
The lefty-hitting second baseman, who hit .378 last season, is batting a team-high .407 with a team-high 60 RBI and 11 homers. He has a 15-game hitting streak going into Coastal Carolina’s opening-round game in the Big South tournament Wednesday.
"When you’ve got runners on base, there’s nobody else you want at the plate because you know he’s going to get them in," said teammate Daniel Bowman. "He’s carried us this year."
Ironically, La Stella is on scholarship for the first time — in his junior year. After hitting .320 in 20 games as a freshman at St. John’s, he wanted to transfer and he was hooked up with Coastal Carolina by Bob Frassa, a hitting instructor in North Jersey who was friendly with coach Gary Gilmore.
