Hunt vs. Hunter
While much of the national attention focusing on college baseball was fixed on San Diego, with the Toreros hosting a tournament that included numerous pitchers that are projected to be selected in the first round of the 2008 draft, there was also a very interesting matchup between such pitchers in an unexpected locale: The Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The Golden Gophers hosted their annual Dairy Queen Classic tournament last weekend, playing host to Pepperdine, Texas Christian and Tulane. The Pepperdine and Tulane matchup on Friday afternoon between right-handers Brett Hunter and Shooter Hunt was a treat to the scouting contingent from the upper Midwest that decided the collection of talent was far too good to miss.
Brett Hunter
Pepperdine played host to Tulane in the first game of the tournament, meaning their Friday ace, Brett Hunter, took the mound first
Hunter is no stranger to this part of the country. He was a member of the Alexandria Beetles of the Northwoods League during the summer of 2006, being named one of the league’s top prospects after posting a 1.53 ERA in 10 summer starts. He was dominant pitching exclusively out of the bullpen last summer with Team USA posting a 3-0 record and a 0.66 ERA, a role many believe he will be best at at the next level. However, after his start last Friday I think most will want to give him more than enough chances to show that he can thrive in a starting rotation.
That’s because his stuff just kept getting better as the game wore on. Warming up to open the game he was throwing 91-92 without breaking sweat. His first pitch to open the contest was 94, his first pitch to the second batter in the game was 95 and he never dipped below 93. By the fifth inning his velocity was up to 96 and he added another digit in the seventh reaching 97. His velocity is especially impressive by how easily he’s able to maintain it, consistently working in the 93-95 range the first few innings, 94-96 in the fifth and sixth and 95-97 in the seventh.
Finding that added velocity likely had to do with him finding his rhythm. The first three innings weren’t bad for him by any means, but he wasn’t spotting his fastball as well as he was later in the game and he also wasn’t snapping off his breaking ball as what I had seen both later that day and in previous appearances. He gave up single runs in both the first and third innings, although he did strike out a pair of batters in the first inning: Tulane first baseman Sam Honeck looking on a 79 mph slider and designated hitter Andrew Rodgers swinging on a 95 mph fastball.
He then enjoyed one-two-three innings in the fourth, fifth and seventh innings, while facing only one batter over the minimum in the sixth. After the third inning I never thought he would had gone six much less seven innings on his reported 100-pitch count.
No surprise, he was able to do this by pitching more aggressively and getting ahead early in the count while also inducing more swings earlier in the count. He struck out two batters in both the fourth and fifth innings, and started to get his breaking ball over for strikes more consistently.
I wasn’t too concerned with him starting the game slow, as it is still early in the season. I was a little concerned that of the 13 outs that came on balls put in play, nine were fly balls and four were on grounders. However, all of the base hits he allowed were on ground balls that happened to find the holes on the left and right sides of the infield, and he didn’t allow a single extra-base hit.
There is some effort to his delivery, which is another reason why he’s mentioned as a future closer, but he’s an athletic and projectable prospect with a very loose arm and plenty of reasons to believe he will be able to sustain and possibly improve upon his velocity in the years to come.
Shooter Hunt
Hunt nearly matched Hunter by registering 93 on the radar gun on his first three pitches. While his fastball never clocked higher than 94, I never saw it dip below 92, as both pitchers showed impressive consistency so early in the season.
Much of it comes from a balanced delivery that Hunt repeats very well. He has a no-nonsense approach, although he didn’t pitch as aggressively as I thought he would. His command may have been off on this day, as he did walk five batters in six innings of work, but he also struck out eight and gave up only two base hits (similar to Hunter, none for extra bases), neither of which was hit particularly hard.
And Hunt also has the better, more consistent breaking ball of the two pitchers, a curve that he can drop into the zone in the 74-75 range or a harder version of the pitch, 77-79 mph, that he uses to spike in the dirt to get batters fishing.
He also at times showed the natural sense of how to set up hitters, often using his fastball to set up his curve and vice-versa to get critical strikeouts. He managed to work out of a one-out, bases loaded jam in the fourth inning, and followed that up with a one-two-three inning in the fifth, a tribute to his poise on the mound.
Despite all of that, I was a little surprised by how passively he pitched. Maybe it was simply a matter of him not finding his control, but even in pitching wild he wasn’t effectively wild like more notable fire-ballers tend to be. He often worked away from batters, and while he did miss quite a bit, he wasn’t missing by much, pitching as though he was trying to avoid contact instead of trying to induce contact earlier in the count.
That style of pitching isn’t uncommon in college baseball, and again, I do recognize that not only was this just one start, but it was also early in the season. And he did strike out eight batters.
The walks are something that he’s struggled with his entire career, walking nearly a batter every other inning in his two years at college and two summers on the Cape. If he can learn to pitch more efficiently he’s going to be able to go a lot deeper into ballgames on a more consistent basis.
It’s hard not to like his size, stuff and overall delivery, and I would like to see how aggressively he pitches on another day.
Closing successor
While Tulane’s bullpen tandem of Trey Martin and Mason Griffin quickly lost the game, Brett Hunter’s successor as Pepperdine’s closer, senior Nick Gaudi, made the most of a two-run lead by striking out the side in the ninth inning.
Gaudi doesn’t bring the heat like Hunter does, instead relying on pitching guile, the command of his 88 mph fastball and a deceptive delivery in which he shows his back to the opposing batters during his windup, making his pitches that much harder to track.
While his pro potential is limited, short inning relief specialists are being given more and more chances to succeed.
Bats quiet, but present
With Hunter going seven strong innings and Hunt going six, the bats didn’t make much noise. The game ended 4-2, with Pepperdine rallying late in the ballgame, scoring two runs in the bottom of the eighth to take a lead they would not relinquish.
However, two hitters did stand out.
Pepperdine left-fielder Eric Thames is a player that I was plenty familiar with after covering the Northwoods League and naming him the top overall prospect based on the amount of univeral praise he received from the coaches and scouts that covered that league last summer. A left-handed hitter, he showed a sound approach, good plate coverage and excellent bat speed by making strong contact in each of his four plate appearances. That strong contact didn’t pay off until he hit an absolute rocket up the middle in the eighth inning that began Pepperdine’s two-run rally, with Thames scoring the go-ahead run.
While many want, and expect, to see more power come from Thames’ bat, you have to love his approach. He is always thinking the other way and up the middle, and shows the ability to go with the pitch. That approach is what allowed him to lead both Pepperdine and the Northwoods League in RBI last year, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him start to develop more pull power as he continues to master the strike zone.
Thames also made a nice defensive play, ranging to deep left-center field to catch a ball while slamming up against the outfield wall. However, he also showed his weakest tool, his arm strength, early in the contest by struggling to get a ball he quickly retrieved that was hit to shallow left field to home plate in the first inning, allowing the runner that was on second base to score.
Physically Thames looks like a big-leaguer, with a strong muscular build and good proportions. I think he has the best bet to hit at the next level of all of the batters in attendance for this game given his approach, but his upside may be somewhat limited depending on how his power develops.
His teammate, shortstop Chase d’Arnaud, also looks like a big-leaguer physically. He didn’t have too many opportunities to show off his glove given the number of strikeouts and fly-ball outs recorded, but he did make one highlight play by ranging deep to the hole to his right while making a strong throw across the diamond to throw out the runner.
Offensively d’Arnaud showed what kind of bat speed he had by turning on an inside fastball and hitting a screamer right at the third baseman in the seventh inning. While that hard-hit ball didn’t show up on the scorecard as anything more than an out, he did have a productive day with an RBI groundout in the first and also drew a walk in the third before striking out against Hunt on a 93 mph fastball in the fifth.
The thoughts and opinions listed here do not necessarily reflect those of Perfect Game USA. Patrick Ebert is affiliated with both Perfect Game USA and Brewerfan.net, and can be contacted via email at pebert@brewerfan.net.