When asked this week to describe what centerfielder Jordan Bach brings to the ball club, Kansas baseball coach Dan Fitzgerald started and ended with one thing.
Winning.
“When it's all said and done, I would define him as a guy that just loves winning,” Fitzgerald said on Tuesday, four days before his team opens play in this week’s Super Regional at Hoglund Ballpark. “I don't think he cares who gets the credit or how it happens as long as we win.”
It turns out there’s a reason for that.
Super Regional Schedule for Hoglund Ballpark
Game 1: Saturday, June 6, 5 p.m. (central) on ESPN2
Game 2: Sunday, June 7, 5 p.m. (central) TV TBD
Game 3 (if necessary): Monday, June 8, Time & TV TBD
Earlier this week, in a dugout interview with R1S1 Sports, Bach explained.
“I think it honestly goes back to earlier in my college career,” said the graduate senior who spent the previous two years at SIU-Carbondale after stops at NE Oklahoma A&M and St. Xavier before that. “I had a bunch of personal success, but we never won anything.”
Those achievements Bach talked about are nothing to roll your eyes at. The list included all-conference and all-region honors as well as leading his teams in categories like hits, walks, runs, slugging percentage, home runs, doubles and more.
But without the wins to go with it, he didn’t always feel like celebrating.
“You kind of learn pretty quickly that it doesn’t really matter if we’re losing,” he said. “It doesn’t feel as good. So, to be a smaller piece on a team that wins this much has been so fulfilling. I absolutely love coming to the park with these guys every day.”
Bach is not one of the Jayhawks’ top hitters (sixth at .287), nor does he have the most power (tied for fifth in HRs with 7 and fifth in RBIs with 44).
Not that he’d know any of that.
See, Bach considers himself to be an absolute stat rat when it comes to following Major League Baseball, which he loves. But he doesn’t spend a single minute of his season tracking his own stats.
“I try to stay away from all the stats and stuff until the season’s over,” he said. “Always have. It’s kind of a superstitious thing with me.”
“It’s been fantastic to see all these guys blow up. And I’m just extremely happy to be around for it and to be a part of this team.”
— KU graduate senior centerfielder Jordan Bach
Avoiding the numbers allows him to focus more of his time and energy on the two things he loves the most in this game — his teammates and setting a good example for them to follow.
That last part may actually be one area in which Bach leads the Jayhawks, and it’s something Fitzgerald appreciates the most about his centerfielder.
“Bach loves winning and he loves being around his teammates,” the KU coach said. “He does a great job of staying really present in the moment, and he's been so big for us all year long.”
That, too, is by design, Bach said. And it comes from the lessons he’s learned in the game now that he’s at the back end of his college career.
“I’ve had a million college at-bats at this point,” he said. “And it’s sort of just my role for me to just show up and be the same guy every day and just be a model of consistency. That’s been the goal.”
He’s been great in center field, with just 4 errors spread out over all 61 KU games. And he’s been full of life in the dugout, the clubhouse, at practices and wherever else these guys get together.
But it’s at the plate where Fitzgerald said Bach does his best Steady Eddie impersonation.
“His at-bats are very cerebral,” Fitzgerald said. “And he's thinking through it and he's got a plan and he’s going up there to execute it. I think he loves the chess-game of it.”
It makes sense, then, that Bach calls drawing a 10-pitch walk his favorite part of baseball.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen me throw my bat after a walk,” he noted. “I get real excited. That’s my favorite part.”
So, too, is on-base-percentage. By now, you surely understand that he doesn’t know what that stat reads. But it probably also won’t surprise you to learn that he ranks second on the team in OBP (at .422, just behind all-world shortstop Tyson LeBlanc at .430) and leads the Jayhawks with 52 walks in 244 at-bats.
“It took me a minute to realize the value of it,” he said. “But I absolutely love getting on base. Walks, hit-by-pitch, hits, I just love on-base-percentage.”
As a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan, who grew up in Ladner, British Columbia, Canada, — which he says is known pretty broadly as “the California of Canada” — Bach is pretty into rivalries.
He loves the Bills-Chiefs showdowns of the recent past and, of course, gets a little more excited about every AFC East victory that Josh Allen and the boys have racked up along the way.
So, for him, even though he’s only been a Jayhawk for one year, sweeping 9 games against Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska and Wichita State this season was one of his absolute favorite parts.
“That made me super-happy,” he said. “Those are the ones that mean more.”
When reminded that Oklahoma, this week’s Super Regional foe, is an old Big Eight and Big 12 rival of Kansas’, Bach’s eyes got bright and his smile grew bigger.
Of course he wants to win. But rather than viewing this as an Omaha-or-bust type of week, Bach has continued to focus on the things that got him here and the things that matter most to him.
He shared his mindset with his dad during a phone call shortly after the team won last week’s regional.
“Obviously I’m excited that we’re going to Super Regionals,” he told his father. “But, for me, I’m just happy to get to spend another week with these guys as teammates. That’s all I’m fighting for, to play with these guys as long as I possibly can.”
“It’s been fantastic to see all these guys blow up,” he added. “And I’m just extremely happy to be around for it and to be a part of this team.”
R1S1 Sports coverage from KU's Regional Championship...
• Jayhawks clinch regional title
• Dariel Osoria delivered in more ways than one
• Ballinger born to be in The Backyard
• A generational joining of hands
• Cook goes toe-to-toe with likely 1st-round pick
• Juiced up Jayhawks top Arkansas to move to 2-0 in regional play
• Records fall in KU's 6-3 win in regional opener
Three down. KU wins, 13-10.
— Matt Tait (@mctait) June 1, 2026
Regional champs!!! pic.twitter.com/UoJBuWfQWA
Some of our favorite Jayhawk stories from the season so far
• Jayhawks win outright Big 12 title - Putting KU's first ever Big 12 crown in the proper context and perspective
• Stop us if you've heard this one... - Jayhawks validate regular season title by winning school's second ever Big 12 tourney trophy
• Jayhawks draw No. 15 national seed for this weekend's regional at KU - KU opens postseason play at Noon on Friday against Northeastern at Hoglund Ballpark
• Meet the Jayhawks - A deeper look at who these guys really are, outside of their baseball stats and stardom
• Hoglund upgrades 20+ years in the making - and they may still be just getting started
• The man behind the mask - What catcher Augie Mungarrieta has meant to KU
• From France to Friday nights - The story of KU pitcher Mathis Nayral
• Coming out of his shell - This season has been so much fun even normally-reserved KU ace Dom Voegele has allowed his emotions to show
• All he does is win - KU shortstop Tyson LeBlanc has done nothing but win in the game of baseball since he started playing and he hasn't slowed down in Lawrence
• Ready and willing - How KU's starting infield set the tone for this team's incredible work ethic
• Red-hot Jayhawks working magic recipe for another memorable run - Juco recruiting, hard work, being incredible teammates, it's all part of the magic that KU coach Dan Fitzgerald has brought to Lawrence
— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com
