Atlanta Braves: Jason Hursh 3-Start Review

Jason Hursh with the M-Braves in 2014. Photo credit: Alan Carpenter, TomahawkTake.com

Jason Hursh

Jason Hursh was the Braves first round pick of the 2013 draft, 31st overall out of Oklahoma State University. He had a reputation as a hard throwing guy with a tremendous sinker who would have gone top 10 like his college teammate Andrew Heaney had the year before to the Marlins. Then he underwent Tommy John surgery after his freshman year of college, causing him to miss his entire 2012 sophomore season. He returned to the hill and was sitting in the low-90s and touching as high as 97 in his junior year of college.

Jason started his pro career at low-A Rome straight out of college, and he made 9 starts, only throwing 27 innings, but sporting a 0.67 ERA. He skipped high-A in 2014, but he looked no worse for the wear as he hurled 148 1/3 innings for Mississippi in 27 appearances (26 starts). While his strikeout rate wasn’t high, Hursh sported a 3.58 ERA and 1.30 WHIP, showing a proclivity to use his heavy fastball low in the zone to drive contact, His walk rate of 7% and his home run rate of 0.3 HR/9 drew a lot of attention, with many, including yours truly, high on Hursh as a inning-eater back end guy for the rotation.

After the offseason of pitching acquisitions, Hursh was returned to Mississippi to start 2015. He was in the midst of a horrid 2015 before the last few starts

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