Minors

Minor League Podcast: Tanner Scott trying to transition from flamethrower to pitcher

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If you like to follow along with the progress of prospects in the Orioles’ minor league system, you probably already know a little bit about Bowie left-hander Tanner Scott.

It’s hard to slip under the radar when you’re a lefty that can throw a fastball 100 mph.

The buzz around Scott pretty much has been the same since the Orioles drafted him in the sixth round out of Howard (Junior) College in Texas back in 2014.

Big arm, has no idea where the ball is going.

As a pro, Scott has thrown 144 2/3 innings, he’s struck out an impressive 185 batters, but walked 114. The 22-year-old has actually allowed more walks than hits in his career.

He’s always been considered a future, back-end reliever, but this year the Orioles have done something a little different with Scott. They are having him start games, pitching three innings per outing. That way, he’s not entering situations with men on base, he’s seeing the same batter more than once an outing and he has a more consistent routine.

So far, the results have been encouraging; he’s allowed just five hits and three earned runs in 15 innings (1.80 ERA) for the Baysox. He’s struck out 21 batters, but has walked 15.

In today’s “Minor League Podcast,” Scott talks about what he’s learning starting games, how he’s utilizing his slider more often and how he’s working on becoming more of a pitcher than just a flamethrower.

In the discussion with Adam Pohl, the voice of the Baysox, Scott talks about how he doesn’t look at the radar gun anymore, but instead gauges his outings on how he attacks the hitters. He also discusses his path from barely pitching in high school in Ohio to being drafted by the Orioles out of Texas.

In the second part of Pohl’s podcast he talks with our minor league reporter, Dean Jones Jr., about various topics including Scott, the self-induced injury to Jomar Reyes and Chris Tillman’s injury rehab stint as the right-hander prepares to make his season debut Sunday against the Chicago White Sox.

As always, our “Minor League Podcast” is filled with lots of information for O’s fans.

Dan Connolly

Dan Connolly has spent more than two decades as a print journalist in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Baltimore native and Calvert Hall graduate first covered the Orioles as a beat writer for the York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record in 2001 before becoming The Baltimore Sun’s national baseball writer/Orioles reporter in 2005. He has won multiple state and national writing awards, including several from the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013 he was named Maryland Co-Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. And in 2015, he authored his first book, "100 Things Orioles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die." He lives in York, with his wife, Karen, and three children, Alex, Annie, and Grace.

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Dan Connolly

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