Daily Recaps: Day 1

Play on Sunday was limited to eight games instead of the scheduled 20 after a severe thunderstorm, preceded by an impressive "Haboob" (the term for the high winds and dust storm that often accompanies a desert thunderstorm) hit the Goodyear complex shortly after 3:00 p.m. The irony, of course, is that after WWBA events in Georgia and BCS events in Florida have been significantly impacted by weather in the past two weeks that this 17u PG World Series in normally dry Arizona would also get hit.

Here are some scouting highlights from Saturday's limited action:

Righthanded pitcher and first baseman Kyle Hurt is a primary pitcher who is ranked ninth in the latest Perfect Game Class of 2017 rankings. The 6-foot-4, 205-pound athlete from Torrey Pines High School in the San Diego area has stood out on both sides of the ball thus far but may have been more impressive with the bat. He threw four innings in the San Diego Show's 8-0 loss to the Orlando Scorpions yesterday, allowing only two earned runs while working in the 86-89 mph range. The Show's offense bounced back Saturday morning with a 13-8 thumping of previously unbeaten Baseball Northwest with Hurt leading the way. The righthanded hitter went 3-for-3 with three RBI and came up in his last at-bat needing a home run to complete the cycle but instead drew a walk. Hurt's triple hit off the top square of the extra tall fence on Reds Field 6 would have been a home run on six of the seven other fields used for the event.

We highlighted EvoShield Canes righthander Tyler Benninghoff's outing yesterday when he threw only 52 pitches in five innings. Slammers Holzemer righthander Bo Weiss executed his own version of that Saturday, using an efficient 74 pitches to work through six innings of three-hit, five-strikeout baseball in a 3-1 Slammers win over North East Baseball. Weiss worked in the 86-90 mph range while mixing in a low-70s curveball and an upper-70s changeup. Major League starting pitchers average about 15.5 pitches per inning as a reference, with Mark Buerhle edging Max Scherzer as the stingiest in 2015 at 13.9 pitches/inning.

The hardest fought game of the day was clearly the Dallas Patriots 2-1 win over the Orlando Scorpions. Both teams, but especially the Scorpions, seemed to have runners on base every inning but could never come up with the big hit. Righthander Jonathan Heasley, the Most Valuable Pitcher at the 17u WWBA National Championship, picked up the win for the Patriots with four innings of work, pitching at 88-90 mph with his fastball and relying heavily on his curveball to get key outs. Carlos Cortes continued with his hot hitting for the Scorpions, driving in their only run with a booming double to right-center field in the first inning.

Elite Squad catcher Michael Amditis hasn't been hitting for as much power this summer as he has previously shown but has traded that for more consistent contact from a shorter and crisper swing. He went 3-for-3 with an RBI and run scored as Elite Squad moved to 3-0 with a 4-1 win over GBG Marucci. Amditis bats fifth in a very impressive lineup that runs Colton Welker, Alejandro Toral, Rylan Thomas and Amditis 2-5 in their batting order. Toral, one of the top 2017 prospects in the country, hasn't unleashed his own big power yet at this event but is a must-see at-bat whenever possible.

EvoShield Canes righthander Bryse Wilson hasn't really received the notoriety that goes with a young pitcher who can bump the mid-90s, but he will eventually, especially if his slurve-type breaking ball continues to improve as it did on Sunday. Wilson threw four innings of two-hit baseball and got the win in the Canes 10-1 win over the Dbacks Elite, working at 91-94 mph. He threw the same velocity at the PG National Showcase last month, but that was really his only weapon, as both his breaking ball and changeup were effective and mixed in liberally in this outing.