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Costello tosses 5 shutout innings to help Cutters win

DAVE KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette Williamsport Crosscutters pitcher Chase Costello pitches to the Frederick Keys in the first inning at Bowman Field on Thursday.

Instinctively, Chase Costello threw up his pitching hand to protect his face. It’s hard to blame him for relying on his instincts when a line drive is destined for his forehead.

His bare hand deflected the baseball into his glove. And before he realized just how much that hurt, Costello spun toward second base to see if there was a double-play opportunity. Then the pain set in. It wasn’t enough to force him from Thursday’s series finale against Frederick. But it was enough to leave him with a sore hand after five shutout innings.

Costello is well aware using his pitching hand to deflect line drives as he works this summer to get noticed by pro baseball scouts isn’t exactly a grand plan. But it was all he had in a split-second move at Bowman Field on Thursday.

“My face is my moneymaker, too,” Costello said with a hearty laugh. “I have to protect that.”

Costello was in complete control for the Cutters last night, combining with two other pitchers on a six-hitter in a 9-1 win over the Keys. Coupled with an opportunistic offense which scored all nine of its runs in three innings where it had a combined four hits, and it was the perfect recipe for a bounceback win after Wednesday’s mistake-fueled loss.

And it was Costello who was at the center of it all. He’s one of the most intriguing prospects in the entire MLB Draft League in part because it’s been nearly two years since he’s pitched consistently because of a lack of use at LSU and then ineligibility after transferring to Stetson last fall.

But what Costello has shown in his five outings with the Cutters is he is absolutely a pitcher who should be on the radar of Major League Baseball teams when the draft rolls around next month. Thursday was probably his best outing of the young season. It was also the fourth time in five outings he hasn’t allowed an earned run.

He also struck out five hitters in five innings Thursday against Frederick, his second-most strikeouts in an outing this season.

“He was really on (Thursday). This was his best start of the season,” Cutters manager Billy Horton said. “He attacked early and was in command of most of his pitches every inning. He went out there and he knew he was better than their lineup. He believed it in his heart and he went out there and shoved. It was great.”

More than a half-dozen MLB scouts sat in the stands behind home plate Thursday night watching Costello and Frederick starter Kamron Fields, who was up to 95 mph with his fastball. And while Costello didn’t have that max velocity he’s flashed earlier this season touching 95 mph, he’s comfortably and consistently sat almost effortlessly in the 92-93 mph range. He also pulled the string on a yo-yo change-up flashing its plus pitch potential.

These are all things scouts haven’t been able to see from Costello over the last two seasons. After appearing in 14 games as a bullpen arm in 2019 at LSU, he saw action in just three games in 2020 before the season was shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic despite leading the Tigers in all pitching categories during fall ball prior to the season.

Knowing he wasn’t going to get the opportunities he needed to pitch at LSU, Costello asked for a release to transfer and wound up at Stetson University in Florida. He went there because he had heard incredible feedback about Hatters pitching coach Dave Therneau. Even though he wasn’t eligible to pitch competitively this season, Costello learned how to become a pitcher instead of a thrower by working with Therneau.

Only when he arrived on campus at LSU for the first time in the fall of 2018 was Costello a full-time pitcher. Prior to that, he had always played shortstop as well. Now he’s a pitcher only and he’s looking like a grizzled veteran on the mound who both believes in his stuff and trusts his own abilities.

He struck out the side Thursday night against Frederick in the first inning on just 12 pitches, painting the outside corner with that low-90s fastball for all three strikeouts.

“I’m still learning how to pitch,” Costello said. “At Stetson, they basically showed me how to become a pitcher and how to attack hitters. That’s been paying off and I can use it now.”

The only trouble Costello ran into Thursday was largely of his own doing. He threw wildly to first base on a dribbler up the first-base line to put a runner on second base with one out in the third inning. He allowed a harmless walk in the second inning and another in the fourth inning.

When the Keys did finally make solid contact in the fifth inning for back-to-back one-out singles, Costello rolled a 5-4-5 double play to end the threat and his night. That length into the game is what he’s trying to show the scouts who are seeing him as a starting pitcher for the first time in his collegiate career.

Thursday Costello threw 87 pitches, 59 of which were for strikes (68%). On top of that, he threw first-pitch strikes to 12 of the 19 hitters he faced. And for the fourth time in his five appearances this year, Costello allowed fewer hits than he had innings pitched.

No matter how you quantified it, all the peripheral numbers pointed to it being another strong outing for the 21-year-old Florida native. He’s allowed just 14 hits in 21 innings this season and has a 0.86 ERA with 22 strikeouts.

“I’m just trying to show them who I am as a person when I’m on the mound,” Costello said. “If you give me the opportunity to go out there for more than one inning, I’ll show you that I get better as the game goes on. My velocity and my command gets better as the game goes on. The biggest thing is I have to prove that I am built for this and I am a starting pitcher. I’ve been dying for two years to get on the field and I’m like a kid in a candy store when I get out there.”

Williamsport’s offense backed what Costello, Jacob Smith and Max Loven did on the mound by being opportunistic with its chances. Trey Steffler hit a two-out RBI single in the first inning for a 1-0 Cutters lead.

In a three-run fifth inning, the three runs came without benefit of a hit because Damone Hale scored on a wild pitch, Jaxon Shirley was forced in with a bases-loaded walk, and Michael Trautwein added a sacrifice fly.

And in a five-run sixth inning which blew the game wide open, the Cutters had just two hits, but one of them was a two-out, two-strike, bases-loaded single from Lance Logsdon to score a pair of runs. Dakota Kotowski drove in another run with a double before a pair of wild pitches allowed two more runs to score.

Williamsport hitters forced Frederick pitchers to throw 154 pitches in eight innings last night, drawing nine walks.

“I don’t think we walked very much in the first four innings, but then they had trouble locating and we went to our zone where we shrink the 17 inches of home plate to our seven or eight inches,” Horton said. “And if they don’t come to us, we’re not going to them. Our guys did a great job of being patient. They did a really good job of making the pitcher come to them and then when they came in the zone, we hit it hard.”

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