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2,580 MLB PLAYERS | 16,393 MLB DRAFT SELECTIONS

Tournaments | Story | 8/11/2003

Chapel Hill, Day 2 and 3

Perfect Game Staff

Chapel Hill Day 2 and 3 It’s one of those unknown “It may not be a record but it’s still darn good” things, but after a rainy, long Day 1 at the Perfect Game Southeast Top Prospect Showcase, Day 2 came off perfectly. 32 innings and 4+ games in 9 hours and 40 minutes. It doesn’t get much smoother than that. Not surprisingly, Saturday was the “Day of the Left Hander”, too, as a number of strike throwing southpaws pitched, with predictable results. LHP Blake Martin (Boaz, AL) was the most impressive of the group. Martin had a very quick arm on projectable 6-3, 170 lb. frame and pitched in the 85-87 mph range. College coaches at the showcase said that they’d seen Martin in the 89-90 mph range in the past and that was easy to believe. Martin’s breaking ball will need some refining but he has a very nice arm. On the other end of the scale was LHP Greg “Winger” Early (Chesapeake, VA). Early might be the most extreme soft tosser ever to appear in a Perfect Game event, but it would be hard to top him for effectiveness. Early topped out at 67 mph, with a 60 mph curveball and 57 mph change up. He threw 4 shutout innings, allowing only 2 hits and inducing 9 fly ball outs. Despite not walking any hitters, Early rarely threw a strike, copying the Tom Glavine style of never giving a hitter a pitch he can hit solidly. Early’s coaches say it’s no fluke, that he shutout Virginia’s AAA high school champion summer team last weekend and put a 0-3 collar on top 2005 prospect Justin Upton the week before that. Other lefties who had their way with the hitters included Joe Cutler (Cary, NC), a smooth, projectable athlete with a variety of pitches, Trey Barham (Portsmouth, VA), who had a sharp curveball to go with an 84 mph fastball and Mark Beppler (Chesapeake, VA). C Chris Kirkland (Knoxville, TN) and CF Chris Engle (Kernersville, NC) provided the offensive highlights. Kirkland drove in 3 runs with a single and a hard double that short hopped the left centerfield wall. Engle, at 5-8 on of the smaller players at the showcase but probably the top pure hitter, knocked 2 opposite field doubles off the 370 foot sign in left center. The star of Sunday’s games was undoubtedly OF-RHP Jordan Ellis (Bryn Mawr, PA). The 6-2, 190 lb. Ellis singled his first time up, hit the Showcase’s only home run over the left field fence in his second opportunity and legged out a triple into the left field corner in his 3rd at bat. With a chance to hit for the cycle in the bottom of the 7th (has that ever been done in a Showcase game?), Ellis hit a lazy fly ball to centerfield. In true baseball fashion, he was soundly booed by his teammates as he ran back to the dugout before accepting his congratulations. Ellis had shown a good arm the day before, touching 88 mph off the mound. Kirkland continued his excellent showcase Sunday by coming out from behind the plate to pitch two scoreless innings, hitting 88 and 89 consistently on the radar gun. Overall, the event was somewhat noteworthy for it’s lack of high velocity pitchers, as Kirkland was the hardest thrower over the three days and no pitcher touched 90 mph. The top gun times included: RHP Chris Kirkland (Knoxville, TN) 89 mph RHP Ben Hildreth (Forest, VA) 89 mph RHP James “Bubba” O’Donnell (Millville, NJ) 88 mph RHP Edward Anderson (Bradenton, FL) 88 mph RHP Brett Hontz (Newtown Center, PA) 88 mph RHP Jordan Ellis (Bryn Mawr, PA) 88 mph LHP Blake Martin (Boaz, AL) 87 mph RHP Matt Payne (Hiddenite, NC) 87 mph

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