North Carolina’s J.B. Bukauskas Continues To Roll

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—North Carolina has had its share of ace pitchers in the past dozen seasons, from 2006 College Player of the Year Andrew Miller through future big leaguers such as Matt Harvey, Daniel Bard and Adam Warren, right on through deft college Friday starters such as Kent Emanuel and Zac Gallen.

J.B. Bukauskas has a chance to be as good, or even better, than any of them.

The junior righthander cruised through another dominant start in what has been a dominant season Friday, shutting out Miami for seven innings and striking out nine in an eventual 7-2 Tar Heels victory. In the process, he improved to 4-0, 0.90 with 60 strikeouts, nine walks and just 21 hits allowed in 40 innings. That’s a 0.75 WHIP.

And he’s not doing it with smoke and mirrors. He’s doing it with pure power. His fastball sat in the 92-95 mph range through the first three innings and touched 96 as late as the seventh, with his 90th pitch. His slider, which one area scout called an 80-grade pitch at its best before the game, wasn’t even at its best against the Hurricanes, but was still plenty good enough for him to miss plenty of bats. He threw it at 86-88 mph with its usual late, sharp bite. The tandem helped him strike out 14 last week against Georgia Tech in his first road start of the season, and were sharp again against Miami.

“He spiked a few,” catcher Cody Roberts said after the game, “a few more than usual. But he pretty much always has his slider, and he always has velocity.

“Sometimes he’s in the bullpen warming up and you think he’s off, and then he goes out and still throws 97. And the times when he doesn’t have a good slider are rare. Very rare.”

So are arms such as Bukauskas, even with North Carolina’s recent history, with 12 Tar Heels who pitched for head coach Mike Fox and have pitched in the major leagues. He doesn’t quite have Bard’s easy velocity; very, very few ever have. He throws as hard, if not a bit harder, than Harvey did, and more consistently hard than Miller.

Miller’s slider wasn’t quite as nasty in college as it is in a big league bullpen, but it flashed it. But scouts have been putting 70-grades on Bukauskas’ slider for the last year-plus, and it’s starting to earn those 80 grades. His changeup was ahead of his slider as a prep, and Bukauskas was pleased with it Friday.

“I threw a bunch of them in the sixth inning,” he said, “when they had those lefthanded hitters, and I thought it was pretty good. I pulled a few fastballs tonight, but that’s fixable.”

Miami isn’t a good offensive team; the 10-12 Hurricanes are hitting .208 collectively, and their two runs Friday came off reliever Jason Morgan in the eighth with two of their five hits on the night. So against a weaker team, Bukauskas should dominate, and he did. He retired the first nine batters he faced, five via strikeout, and gave up three singles—one to Randy Batista to lead off the fourth, another to Johnny Ruiz in that sixth inning with all the changeups, the other a leadoff single to left by Romy Gonzalez in the seventh.

The only question remains Bukauskas’ durability, as the 6-foot, 201-pounder has effort to his delivery. But he’s athletic, strong and repeats enough to have cut his walk rate from 3.3 last season to 2.0 through six starts in 2017.

Harvey was the last Tar Heels pitcher drafted in the first round, but Bukauskas is on his way to ending that drought—especially if he keeps pitching like he did Friday.