Now that St. John's has announced their starting pitcher, we thought it would be good to focus in on him in today's "Who is this guy?" segment.
This picture is really small, but he's actually 6'7" tall.
Like the other players that we have previewed, Kyle Hansen was highly recruited out of high school, in his case by Oregon, Arizona State, and St. John's. Since Oregon did not have the program history (it was recently resurrected from a 30 hiatus) and ASU and Oregon were both far, far away. Both have championship caliber coaches, but he spurned them to play at the same university at which his brother played.
He was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 40th round of the draft out of high school, and he has lived up to expectations thus far in his young college career. He has recorded 8 wins and only 1 loss on the year and has a stellar 3.05 ERA.
Last weekend, he pitched twice in the Big East tournament. Both of his starts were victories. He has a lively, deceptive fastball and takes an aggressive approach with each hitter.
I'm personally hoping that Matt Snyder has the same success against this 6'7" RHP as he did the last two times he has faced a RHP of that size. In case you've forgotten, Snyder has hit four homeruns in the last two games against Anthony Ranaudo whose style and size are very similar.
Thank goodness we have Drew Pomeranz starting for us because Kyle Hansen is for real.