Rutgers baseball head coach Steve Owens announced on Friday that Mike Garza has been promoted to Associate Head Coach/Hitting/Recruiting. This will be Garza’s second season as hitting coach and his fourth overall with the RU staff. In addition, he was promoted to Associate Head Coach and will now be in charge of the program’s recruitment efforts. In 2022 and 2023, he worked as the program’s volunteer assistant for the first time.
In 2024, Garza took over as the team’s offensive coordinator for the first time. He helped Rutgers achieve the best batting average in the Big Ten with a mark of.307, leading the team in hits (571), ranking second in hit-by-pitches, third in stolen bases, third in triples, fourth in double plays, fourth in fielding percentage, fifth in on-base percentage, and all other statistical categories.
Josh Kuroda-Grauer, a junior shortstop, won the Big Ten Player of the Year award under Garza’s direction. This is the first major award a player has won from the Big Ten since Rutgers joined the conference in 2015. Kuroda-Grauer had a stellar sophomore season, leading the nation with 95 hits, leading the Big Ten with a.428 average, and adding five home runs, 19 doubles, 45 RBI, and 24 stolen bases. His sophomore season averaged just.298. Kuroda-Grauer received additional First Team All-America honors from Perfect Game and ABCA/Rawlings.
Having coached Danny DiGeorgio and Kuroda-Grauer, two All-Americans at shortstop, Garza has established himself as one of the nation’s finest infielder developers. Rutgers is the only institution in the nation with two separate shortstops chosen finalist for the nation’s top shortstop, the Brooks Wallace Award, in each of the last three seasons—DiGeorgio and Kuroda-Grauer.
