Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra famously said baseball is 90% mental, and the other half is physical.

Berra’s questionable math aside, the point is well taken. Being in the right head space is just as important as being in tune physically.

Norwin grad Noah Czajkowski found that out quickly during his freshman season at St. Bonaventure. He was named a weekend starter for the Bonnies — a distinction generally reserved for a staff’s top pitchers who will throw against conference competition — but lost the job within two weeks.

His numbers, to say the least, were unsightly: 0-3 with a 17.65 ERA in 171⁄3 innings, .380 opponent batting average, 12 strikeouts, 20 walks.

“I definitely got knocked around my freshman year of college,” Czajkowski said. “My senior year of high school, I didn’t have the utmost success either, so it was kind of like, ‘Well, you’re going to play Division I baseball and you didn’t have the most success in high school. How’s this going to go?’

“Mentally, I was all tangled up in my own head, kind of feeling like maybe I don’t belong here.”

Said second-year Bonnies coach Jason Rathbun: “I think it’s tough for freshmen at the Division I level. It’s tough to come in and have an immediate impact. Noah is someone who struggled last year as a freshman and had to do some mechanical work and just get used to being a college student-athlete.”

Czajkowski did work on his mechanics. But first he worked on his mental sharpness, regularly seeing a sports therapist.

He still sees the therapist and practices meditation to keep calm. He said he spends about 10 or 15 minutes before each game or bullpen session listening to meditative music and envisioning being successful.

Looking at the drastic improvement in his numbers this season, it appears as though Czajkowski has cracked the code. Entering this past weekend — St. Bonaventure was 15-27 overall, 5-13 in the Atlantic 10 — he was 3-5 with a 6.94 ERA, a difference of nearly 11 runs over last season.

After surrendering four homers in 171⁄3 innings last season, he has surrendered the same number in nearly three times that many innings (462⁄3). Opponents are hitting nearly 70 points less (.314), and he has yielded 21 walks while striking out 39.

“He’s gotten a lot better with his mechanics,” Rathbun said. “His arm is stronger. All of his metrics have gone up a lot. He’s someone we think has got a bright future in the next two years. Or maybe just one. He’s definitely somebody I think scouts are going to have an interest in after next year.”

In terms of mechanics, the biggest change for Czajkowski is with his lead leg. He wasn’t consistently getting the proper plant with his front foot — “sticking the landing,” Rathbun called it — which caused his pitches to spray all over the zone.

Along with being better at “sticking the landing,” Czajkowski also has developed a cutter to complement his fastball and curveball.

“He has a really good curveball,” Rathbun said. “It’s a swing-and-miss pitch, but it’s not necessarily a pitch we throw as a strike a lot. … The cutter has given him an offspeed pitch that he can land for a strike consistently so guys aren’t just sitting on his fastball.”

That fastball stalled in the high-80s last season, with the occasional flirtation with 90. This season, Czajkowski is consistently in the low-90s and has reached 94 mph on the radar gun.

Czajkowski attributes the extra zip on his fastball to bulking up over the past couple of years. He said he always struggled with gaining weight, so he started regular consumption of 3,200-calorie protein shakes, which seemed to do the trick. The right-hander now packs 195 pounds on his 6-foot-1 frame, and he might try to put on a few more pounds.

“The weight development is definitely huge,” he said. “I think I’m kind of standing right on where I want to be. I’d like to see how my body is going to move if I have 200 to 205 pounds.”

Put it all together, and Czajkowski has exhibited much better command of his pitches, evidenced by his reduced walk rate and fewer home runs allowed.

“I’ve always been a guy who didn’t have the best command,” Czajkowski said. “I had a lot of movement on my pitches, but I didn’t have the best command. … My in-zone rates are a lot higher than they’ve ever been.”

As he just begins to tap into his potential, Czajkowski continues to build. Along with adding the cutter, he is perfecting a fourth pitch, a changeup, to further expand his repertoire. It’s a pitch he admits isn’t quite there yet but is getting closer.

He also plans to ramp up his offseason competition. Czajkowski said he probably will not return home this summer but head to Tampa, Fla., to train, and if all goes as planned, land on a team in the New England Collegiate Baseball League or the Cape Cod League.

All this while pursuing a major in biology with an eye toward getting into medical school. Czajkowski said the amount of homework he needs to keep up with while on the road has morphed into a running joke among his teammates. Rathbun, who sometimes has to proctor players’ exams during road trips, said he recently saw one of Czajkowski’s quizzes and described it as looking like “crop circles from aliens.”

While his class work might seem otherworldly, Czajkowski appears to be firmly grounded as a college pitcher. He said he could tell from the outset of this season that he improved the mental and physical sides of his game and now is eager to see what the future holds.

“I felt full of confidence,” he said. “Pitches are going exactly where I want them to. … I kind of proved to myself that I do have what it takes to play at this level.”

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