By Chris Fuller
Kentucky Scouting Director

With a packed house of Division I college coaches in attendance at Indiana University Saturday evening, Team Kentucky took the field for the first time in the event history against Team Michigan at the Prep Baseball Report Midwest Future Games.  Today we take a look at the highlights from Game 1 and will recap Games 2 and 3 in later articles.

Right-hander Seth Murphy (’15 Garrard County HS) took the ball for Team Kentucky, and Michigan got on the board early scoring twice in the first inning.  Murphy, whose fastball touched 89 mph multiple times at our Top Prospect Games Event in June, was certainly not back to 100 percent after suffering a strained groin muscle and missing four weeks of his summer season.  However, he battled with a fastball that topped out at 82 to throw a scoreless second inning.

Cameron Shryock (’15 South Warren HS) came on to pitch a scoreless 3^rd and 4^th innings with a fastball that sat 83-85 mph touching 86 and good command of both his curveball and 75-76 mph slider.

Team Kentucky got on the board in the bottom half of the 4^th when Jakob Shuler (’16 Apollo HS) got behind in the count, fouled off several pitches, then stroked an opposite field double down the left-field line.  Maxx Mahon (’15 West Jessamine HS) followed with a double off the left field wall to drive in Shuler

In the 6^th, trailing 3-1, Team Kentucky came literally within an inch of tying the game and making things very interesting.  Connor O’Neil (’15 Lexington Catholic) led off the inning with a single, and two outs later, Ethan Stringer (’16 Beechwood HS) found himself at the plate with runners at second and third and two outs.  Stringer lined a ball down the right field line that fell just foul, and Team Michigan got out of the threat unscathed inducing Stringer to fly out to end the inning.

Michigan added two more runs in the 7^th to send Kentucky down to a 5-1 loss.

Some other highlights from the game:

Ethan Maxey went 2-for-2 with two solid singles up the middle.

Team KY threw out several runners at the plate, including a nice throw from left fielder Logan Banks (’15 Lexington Catholic HS) and a solid play on both ends with the infield in when Eamon Hannan (’15 Lone Oak HS) backhanded a ball in the hole and Shuler applied the tag after picking the short-hop throw.

Jacob Kelly (’15 North Bullitt HS) pitched two innings.  The left-hander showed a fastball that sat 80-82 mph with significant arm-side run from a low ¾ arm slot.

Caleb Bruner (’15 Logan County HS) pitched the 7^th inning with a fastball that sat 82-84 touching 85 and showed the ability to pitch from different arm slots, occasionally dropping down to a side arm slot.