Shea Sprague grew up in a home where the small kitchen TV was tuned into the Red Sox game every evening. Chris Sale was the left-hander’s favorite pitcher.
The 22-year-old prospect — who hails from Hanover and graduated from BC High — is now not only pitching for the organization he grew up watching every day. He’s also pitching well. Really well.
“It’s unreal,” Sprague said by phone Monday. “It’s a dream come true. And I think it’s a little extra motivating for me every day waking up and getting to put on the Red Sox logo and keep trying to get better so I can get to Fenway. Can’t ask for anything more. It’s awesome.”
Boston selected the 6-foot-3, 215-pounder in the 13th round out of UNC last July.
His first two outings this season for the Low-A Salem Red Sox didn’t go well. He allowed nine earned runs in 5 ⅔ innings. Since then, he has given up only four runs in 24 ⅔ innings (1.46 ERA) over five outings. He has allowed just 17 hits and six walks while striking out 28. Opponents are batting .163 against him this month.
He had 17 swings-and-misses in 5 innings against Fredericksburg on April 29 and 14 in 4 ⅔ innings against Fayetteville on May 11.
“I think I just settled in, started going after guys,” Sprague said. “Kind of went through a similar preseason, early-season struggle last year at UNC, trying to be too cute. But I just started going at guys and trusting my stuff. So that’s probably been the biggest change. Nothing major.”
Sprague throws his fastball with a four-seam grip but he added, “I just call it a fastball.”
“It is a four-seam fastball but it’s kind of more like a sinker in shape,” he explained. “It’s got some run to it.”
Sprague — who throws from a three-quarters arm slot — also has a changeup, slider and sweeper.
His changeup has been his best pitch since high school and it induces swing-and-miss.
“It’s got pretty good depth and good change of speed,” Sprague said. “And then obviously throwing it for so many years you just develop a lot of feel for it and confidence to throw it in any count. So I think that’s the biggest thing with me. I have a lot of confidence in it and good feel for it.”
He learned his changeup from former BC High teammate, Sean O’Connell. The two buddies also played together at Elon University before Sprague transferred to UNC.
“He taught me when I was a sophomore in high school,” Sprague said.
The Red Sox introduced a gyro slider to Sprague when he reported to Fort Myers after he signed following the draft.
“Trying to throw that a lot and it’s come along nicely,” he said. “And then just trying to get opportunities to throw the sweeper in-game more to get more feel for it and obviously develop more confidence in it, which will be big against lefties.”
He used to call his sweeper “a slider” in college.
“If you look at the movement profile of it, it’s always been a sweeper,” Sprague said. “Just like a bigger shape to it. With the Red Sox, they wanted me to develop a gyro slider, which is just a smaller shape and a little bit harder. So that one has really been where I’ve been putting a lot of my focus on — just developing that.”
The two pitches complement each other, giving hitters two different breaking ball looks.
“The gyro works to both lefties and righties just to get ahead or to put guys out and then you lean on the sweeper more against lefties as a put-out pitch because the shape’s a little bigger,” he said. “It’s kind of harder to land at least for me at this point. They both serve their purposes but sweeper is a bigger swing-and-miss pitch. And then the slider is a good utility pitch to have to both (lefties and righties).”
He said the gyro slider is listed as one of his player development goals and he called it “one of his biggest priorities.” A lot of time and effort has been put into it.
Sprague had reverse splits in college and it’s continued in pro ball. The lefty has been more effective against right-handed hitters than left-handed hitters. As he said, the sweeper is important against left-handed hitters.
“Not that I’m having a hard time but having a harder time compared to righties, getting them out,” Sprague said. “But continuing to develop that slider and then as we go and we get comfortable with that, moving on and developing a sweeper that should neutralize that and those numbers will probably even out.”
Another player development goal is adding velocity. His fastball velo has been in the 89-92 mph range recently. He hopes to get in the 92-94 mph range or 93-95 mph range within the next year.
“The Red Sox stress to us just the importance of velocity,” he said.
He’s doing Plyo ball drills to increase velocity.
“Obviously I think a lot of velocity comes from physical development, so just getting bigger, stronger, faster,“ he said. ”And just throwing more intent more often. Workload and all that stuff. So they have it down to a science and they’re good about it. It just comes with time, keep working hard and keep throwing hard.”
