Six Huskies invited to showcase by scouts
Duluth, Minn — This last Tuesday, the 2019 Major League Dream Showcase took place at Warner Park in Madison, Wisconsin. Six Duluth Huskies were hand-picked by roughly 60 scouts to compete in the Great Plains division game that took place Tuesday evening and went for nine innings.
In the afternoon prior to the game, players displayed their fielding abilities while hitters took batting practice and pitchers showed off their arm strength in the outfield. Scouts were lined up above home plate in the Tricor/West Bend Club level and behind home plate all day long armed with their radar guns and notebooks studying, analyzing, and processing each player’s performance. They came from all corners of the country like California, Texas, and Florida for example searching for their next potential big draft pick.
Matt Hogan and Kyle Jacobsen were the position players representing the Huskies in centerfield and right field while Austin Smith, Erik Kaiser, Mason Bryant, and Cole Milam all were selected to make an appearance on the mound.
Hogan and Jacobsen both reached base once on a hit-by-pitch and a walk. They struck out twice each in their four at-bats, but Hogan did line out sharply to right field in his first at-bat and Jacobsen came away with a stolen base to his name.
Each Husky pitcher tossed an inning throughout the game and combined to only give up one run. The four men also combined to strike out 8 opposing hitters. Austin Smith was throwing quick and hard as he struck out two and surrendered an RBI single in his appearance, while Erik Kaiser and Mason Bryant both struck out two and induced groundouts. Cole Milam was the last pitcher for Duluth to appear in the 8th inning and walked the first two he faced but rebounded to strike out his last two.
Mason Bryant, who has been known throughout this season as a fireballer, stayed true to that as he pumped 94-96 mph with his fastball and was sitting around 85 mph with his slider. “I feel like I did a pretty good job, I just had to focus in and tell myself what needed to be done.” He has had one of the biggest turnarounds from the first half to the second half, giving up just two runs since July 3rd compared to giving up 19 runs in the first half.
Mason’s control of the strike zone has improved monstrously also as shown by his BB/9 rate being nearly cut in half throughout his eight 2nd half appearances. The tall freshman righty still has a ways to go, but he surely caught the attention of some scouts with his outing in Madison along with all of his Huskies teammates.
The Huskies kick off their last homestand tonight against Waterloo. First pitch is set for 6:35 pm with live game coverage on 92.1 The Fan and twinportssportshub.com beginning at 6:25 pm. All Duluth Huskies and Northwoods League games are live streamed online at portal.stretchlive.com/nwl to watch.
Be sure to follow the Duluth Huskies on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat all season long. Check out duluthhuskies.com for tickets to upcoming games. For more in-depth news on the Huskies, be sure to follow @XtraInningsWithRyne and @JoeChatzHuskies on Facebook.
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The Duluth Huskies are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Now in its 26th anniversary season, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 22 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, more than 200 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist (CHC) and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET) and Curtis Granderson (TOR). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.duluthhuskies.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Huskies as your favorite team.
