Over the course of the 2008 high school baseball season when Walpole High pitcher Sam Murray took the mound, chances were pretty good that the game would move along at a quick pace.
The tall southpaw was like a marksman when it came to hitting the target put up by catcher Chris Ferro, walking just three over 83.1 innings pitched. Opposing batters did not fare much better when it came to putting the ball in play either, hitting a paltry .196 and striking out 82 times.
With numbers like that it was no surprise that the senior fashioned an 8-2 record with a 0.97 ERA helping the Rebels reach the Division 1 South final for the second straight year, falling to BC High in 11 innings on both occasions. Those numbers also helped him to earn the title of 2008 Daily News Transcript Baseball Player of the Year.
His pitching numbers alone made him a top candidate, but in addition to breezing through Bay State Conference opponents, Murray also played a strong right field and led Walpole with a .341 average.
“He’s a good athlete, a baseball player. Sam Murray is a baseball player,” said Walpole head coach Bill Tompkins, using one of the highest compliments he heeps upon players.
“I obviously love taking the field every fifth day (to pitch), but I’m not a fan of watching them when I can help them in the field,” said Murray of his enjoyment of playing on the mound and then in the field.
As he takes his game to St. Joseph’s College in Standish, Maine, a Division III school which reached the NCAA New England Regional Tournament after winning the Great Northeast Athletic Conference, he has the opportunity to do the same as the Monks graduate their closer from this past season, and have a couple of openings in the outfield. Should Murray impress on the mound in the early going starting is always an option.
An imposing figure on the mound, the 6-foot-2 lefthander with a big delivery hides the ball very well and hits his spot as well as anyone in Eastern Massachusetts while keeping hitters off balance with a fastball, curveball and his top pitch, a changeup that falls off the table.
The development of the changeup was something he worked on over the winter after winning four games a year ago while bidding his time behind a quartet of arms that are pitching in college in Sean McDermott (Virginia Tech), Pat Nicholson (Brandeis), P.J. Gouthro (Roger Williams) and Eric Brown (Roger Williams).
“I was really just a fastball, curveball pitcher,” said Murray of his junior year when he was just starting to throw a changeup. “I changed to more of a split finger-forkball grip, played around with it and was amazed with it. Once I got that going it was a big help, I could throw it in the dirt and get guys to swing and miss.”
One constant on a Murray pitch is that it’s always moving. Very rarely does he throw a flat ball and the tailing action makes his modest 84-85 mph fastball that much tougher to hit.
“He doesn’t overpower people, but his ball moves,” said Tompkins. “We notice when he throws from the outfield. He can’t help it, every ball he throws has movement on it.”
Combine that with a windup that has the batter looking more at the No. 12 on the back of his jersey facing them and not being given a look at the ball until it is about to leave his hand means the batter does not have much time to recognize the type of spin on the ball making each pitch appear to have a little extra velocity.
“My fastball isn’t the fastest, but it moves a lot and the key is just getting it where you want to throw it,” said Murray. “Get it up on his hands and he’s not going to do much with it.”
In a 1-0 complete game win at Natick on April 14, Murray tossed a three-hitter, needing just 79 pitches to get through nine innings. Of those 79 deliveries, 67 of them – nearly 85 percent – were for strikes.
While it is the game he was tagged for the most earned runs, the 5-4 win over Xaverian in the MIAA Division 1 South first round is the one Murray felt was his best performance of the spring. In that game Murray worked out of jams in each of the first two innings, including a bases loaded, no out situation in the second and did not allow a run to score and with the exception of the Hawks’ four-run sixth absolutely baffled Xaverian striking out 14 and only walking one.
Murray also picked up the win in the sectional semifinal against Bridgewater-Raynham before the Rebels fell in extra innings for the second consecutive year to BC High.
By constantly being around the strike zone, letting hitters put the ball in play and not feeling the need to strikeout every batter because of the faith in the defense behind him allowed him to stay fresh and be effective throughout the season.
“Throwing strikes is mental, if your tough mentally and you feel your stuff is better than the hitter’s you’re going to throw strikes,” said Walpole pitching coach Chris Costello. “If you have the confidence, you have the stuff, you have good mechanics, you know what you’re doing and you’re confident in yourself you’re going to going to throw strikes.
“He pitched to situations, he was overpowering at times, he could be a finesse pitcher at times, he covered every spectrum as a pitcher, which is rare, you don’t’ see that often. He could beat you with a fastball, he could beat you with a changeup, he beat you with a curveball, he could corner you to death or he could just blow you away.”
When it comes to a tradition-laden program, such as Walpole, one typically does not have to look too far to find other signs of similar success. For Murray, who won four games as a junior, while watching to see how a talented quartet of arms in front of him went about their business, just as they saw guys like Tyler Thornton (Northeastern), Mark Donnellen (Babson) and Joe Scarlata (Columbia) before that.
So while Murray’s ability to pound the strike zone may look impressive, it is a formula that he has seen firsthand work for those who have come before him.
“Every at bat you want to throw the first pitch for a strike so you can play with him after that,” said Murray. “If you start with balls, he’s going to be looking fastballs all the way so if you get the first pitch for a strike you can play with him with your off-speed pitches and throw it wherever you want to throw it so he can chase it. He has to beat you instead of you beating him.”
In that game of cat-and-mouse, Murray was the big cat that had the mouse by the tail.
