UNC's Ryan Lynch: Made Not Found

The first pitch that Ryan Lynch threw at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park wasn’t a strike. On a blustery February Friday, the freshman from Moorestown, N.J. wasn’t even on the mound, he was in the bullpen. And his throw negated a called strike from UNC starter Jason DeCaro. 

Lynch’s warm-up pitches were all over the place. He was effectively a wild thing. 

It was a far cry from the stoic presence on the mound in early January during pre-season scrimmages where his heater was screeching up to 95 miles per hour. 

Once he officially took the DBAP mound, his first pitch was a strike. The second was deemed wild and the runner he had inherited advanced to second. Another pitch caused catcher Luke Stevenson to extend out of his crouch as to not let the ball sail right into the Durham Bulls padded backstop. The Statcast visualization looked like a game of pin the tail on the donkey. Lynch eventually retired his first batter looking on a nasty backdoor slider on a full count.

Up next, ECU’s catcher quickly found himself up in the count as Lynch couldn’t find the zone on three straight. He managed to claw his way back with two strikes but the Pirate hit a weak infield single putting runners on the corners in a tight two-run ball game. With that, Lynch’s outing was done. 

“After that outing, I was pretty pissed because I didn’t exactly do my job in the game,” Lynch said. “But I think it was just sort of like a self-confidence thing and realizing that even though something like that happened it doesn’t change how I can pitch in the future.”

It wouldn’t be Lynch’s last outing on that dirt for the 2025 season. That would come when he started the ACC championship against the mighty Clemson Tigers in late May. 

***                                                                        

Ryan Lynch is the Joe Burrow of the UNC clubhouse. He’s meticulous and detail oriented. He’ll wind down from an outing by watching an OG Pixar movie—such as Toy Story 2 or Cars—, listening to rock music, booting up Photoshop, or maybe even tending to a woodworking project. It simplifies things for him. 

“It makes me realize how insignificant something like having a poor outing, how insignificant that is for you, and just in the scope of the world, you can’t let it destroy the way you act,” he said.

But it’s not just in his postgame relaxation that Lynch is particular. He has a reverence to pitching, as he does with many things in his life, as an art form.

Lynch is drawn to things that require deep focus, thought and mental fortitude. 

“I really enjoyed making something from scratch, and making it how I wanted, and seeing it all come together,” Lynch said on his interest in graphic design. “It’s kind of like art, but not in a physical sense.”

His journey to pitching has very much been the same, molded by Lynch’s hands just like a metaphorical art piece. 

Lynch’s original dream was to play in the NBA. He would go watch the Phillies and 76ers, tossing in an Eagles game every now and then growing up in New Jersey. All of the Lynch children—Ryan and his sisters Grace and Charlotte—took after their father who played at Moravian University and would shoot hoops in the driveway. It was all of their first loves. 

Ryan carried it all the way into high school, becoming a two-year starter for the Quakers, even bringing home a NJ Group 3 State Sectional championship.

But he knew by high school that his NBA dreams were shot. 

“It is the question everyone has to ask by about eighth grade,” Lynch said with a laugh. “But I was by far the slowest dude on the court, and I was skinny and barely six feet. So that was disappointing.”

The now 6-4, 235-pound Lynch who doesn’t skip a day in Boshamer Stadium’s squat racks may not recognize that kid. 

***

Lynch has always known that he wanted to end up in Carolina Blue. If it wasn’t an argyle striped basketball uniform flying up and down Roy Williams court, he would have to find another way to Chapel Hill. 

The colors and logos were all around his house in New Jersey. While neither of Lynch’s parents attended, there were small connections of people knowing people in Moorestown that fostered his love of the Tar Heels. 

“Looking back, childhood me would have been so psyched out to be going here, it always just felt right,” Lynch said. “What really drew me in was just the community aspect of it, and even though it’s such a big school it has such a small feeling to it.”

He is a self-taught pitcher, spending the entirety of his high school freshman season behind the dish. 

Moorestown High School head coach Mike Appalucci called Lynch into his office for the end of season evaluation and gave him a new direction for his baseball journey. He told Lynch to immediately drop his catcher’s mitt and go all in on the mound because it could lead to college opportunities. 

Little did Appalucci know he hit the nail on the head. 

“Who knows if he was lying to me or not,” Lynch said. “But that was a very eye-opening thing for me, because that’s all I wanted to do.”

Lynch, like his affinity for woodworking, crafted his own style of pitching. 

He would throw, tape the session, then sit with Appalucci and break down the video. Once he found a snag, he would fix it. Over these film sessions he developed his arsenal, mentality and style. 

“Looking back the way I pitched back then doesn’t even look remotely to how it is now,” Lynch said.

A lot was due in part to his body. He had a to fill out and grow into his frame. He used to have a Trey Yesavage-like, over the top delivery. Or, as Lynch called it: “awful”. 

But the visual portion of crafting his arsenal has stayed with Lynch. Now after outings and before press appearances he can be seen shadow pitching and he regularly watches back his appearances in order to improve. 

“I can learn other ways, but that’s what I like the most, being able to look at a video and see something visually, and slow it down, look at different parts, that’s just how I learned, and it’s been stuck with me,” Lynch said. 

***

At UNC, Lynch and pitching coach Bryant Gaines have worked up a good rapport. He’s become a steady voice to whisper simplicity to Lynch during outings to keep his righty calm. 

“He’s verbal based,” Lynch said. “And I think that’s good for the situation, because it doesn’t allow me to over complicate anything.”

He started off the season banging, with seven strikeouts against Texas Tech in four innings on opening weekend. Then the famed third of an inning against ECU happened. After that, the coaching staff slowly ramped Lynch back up. He had back-to-back stellar relief stints against VCU and Stony Brook but struggled at Stanford and Louisville, recording only one out between the two contests. 

If there is something about Ryan Lynch, he will not simply crumble after one bad outing, not anymore—that’s where his Pixar movies or artistic distractions come in, getting him out of his head and preparing him to try again.

“I would have an outing, and it would kind of blow up,” Lynch said. “And a lot of things would spiral. I think the idea of adversity that I’ve had before and making the best pitches I personally thought I could make and just getting absolutely smacked around, that was just very humbling.”

But if he was knocked down, he would just get back up. He became one of the Tar Heels’ most reliable arms out of the bullpen and one of head coach Scott Forbes’ best options in dire situations. 

Lynch was named a Freshman Second Team All-American by both D1Baseball and Baseball America. He recorded a 5-1 record with two saves, 72 strikeouts and a season ERA under three. 

*** 

It was the postseason that vaulted Lynch into the stratosphere. There was not a moment down the stretch that was too big. 

He recorded a 2.12 postseason ERA with a seven-strikeout gem in the ACC tournament, a crucial start in UNC’s winner-take-all game against Oklahoma and a strong seven frames in the super regional. 

It was in that four-game postseason stretch where Lynch started his first game, transitioning from being a bullpen animal to a bona fide ace. 

But his mindset stayed the same. 

“Never trying to cruise and always just being aggressive and picture the same situation as if I was coming in a jam,” he said after his regional start against the Sooners. “Or I was only thrown for an inning in a midweek, or whatever it might be.”

There may not be any cruise control, but it looked as if Lynch never took his foot off the gas pedal, recording 18 Ks in his three starts.

Looking towards his sophomore season, and presumably his last in Chapel Hill as the draft eligible sophomore is ranked No. 60 on MLB.com’s prospect rankings, Lynch is adding a changeup to his arsenal and increasing his comfortability. 

Pitches are like friends, some are better depending on the situation, but being able to call on them any time is what separates good from great. And Lynch wants his friends to be used for both sides, in any count, no matter what is blinking on the scoreboard. 

*** 

It was a sunny 72 degrees. ACC Tournament banners dotted the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. There was spilt beer and popcorn littering the seats, remnants of a six-day tournament that was nearing its final leg. 

Ryan Lynch was making the first start of his college career against Clemson, with the championship trophy on the line. 

His last DBAP outing back in February had not gone well. But on that Sunday in May his first pitch recorded was fouled off at 95 miles per hour. Strike.  

“Being mindful of where I am, rather than ‘wow, this is a big moment,’” Lynch said. “More of ‘I get to pitch in front of this crowd and how lucky I am to be here.’ That just sort of simplifies my mind a little bit and helps me to be able to pitch in any situation.”

In the fourth inning, he loaded the bases with no outs—normally a doomed recipe. 

But not for Lynch.

Lynch struck out the red-hot Jacob Jarrell looking. He got Jack Crighton to go down swinging with a slider and sent the Clemson team back into the dugout with nothing to show for the frame as TP Wentworth grounded out. 

“I’m sure a lot of people thought we were crazy for leaving him in,” head coach Scott Forbes said. “You’ve got to have good enough stuff to strike somebody out like he did.”

He ended his day in Durham with seven punchouts in four innings, two hits, two walks and zero earned runs in 83 pitches. Not bad for the kid who three months earlier was airmailing balls to his catcher. 

That’s what makes Ryan Lynch so special on the mound. It’s not just his high velocity fastball, or spin rate on his slider, or new changeup, or postgame habits, or deep love for all kinds of rock music. It’s his grit on the mound, presence in the clubhouse and ability take a punch in the mouth and come back throwing even harder.