Georgia Tech coach Danny Hall doesn’t expect to see Buck Farmer on his pitching staff next season. That’s the way the college game works.
As a starting pitcher for the Yellow Jackets, Farmer has excelled the past two seasons and as a junior will be eligible for the major league draft June 4-6.
“I wish we’d have him for one more year, but he’s done very well for us,” Hall said.
In recent weeks, each successive game may be nudging him higher up draft boards. Since a calamitous start against Boston College on March 23, Farmer has had an ERA of 0.90 in his past four starts, with 28 strikeouts against seven walks and an opponents’ batting average of .198. He’s 3-0 in those starts.
“He’s everything I thought he would be and then some,” Hall said.
He’ll likely need to be similarly sharp Friday, when Tech opens a three-game home series against Clemson. The Jackets are trying to nail down a spot in the ACC tournament and stay in the chase for an NCAA tournament berth.
“I think we’re going to get hot at the right time and then come into the ACC tournament and hopefully turn some heads,” Farmer said.
Farmer will be responsible for the initial head-turning. After earning second-team All-ACC honors last season as Tech’s No. 3 starter, Farmer was promoted to the No. 1 job and has responded with a 6-3 record and a 3.26 ERA. He has been an anchor in Tech’s injury-plagued season.
“I think he’s just been a warrior and a great pitcher for us,” Hall said.
His reliability and strength befit someone who grew up in Conyers in a family of Farmers and farmers. A great-grandfather of Farmer’s owned vast farmland on the north side of Conyers, and Farmer’s parents live on about seven acres of land. There are peach and apple trees in the front. To the side of their home, Farmer said, “we have a big field that they used to actually farm on, that they used to have cows and they used to grow corn.”
Farmer has the country drawl and lifestyle to match. Catcher Zane Evans, Farmer’s road roommate, can attest.
“I’ll look over and see what he’s doing on his computer,” he said. “The other day, he was looking at guns, he was looking at new trucks. They weren’t trucks that you’d normally see. They were ones that were lifted up really high.”
From these beginnings, a pitcher with a competitive bent and a sinister change-up emerged. Farmer caught Hall’s attention in travel baseball with a desire and ability to pitch well in the biggest games, traits that have become magnified at Tech in his recent stretch.
On March 31, he threw a complete-game shutout for a 1-0 win over Duke and likely first-round draft choice Marcus Stroman. Last Friday, against then-No. 6 North Carolina, he held the Tar Heels to two runs over seven innings to initiate a crucial series win for Tech.
Baseball America magazine draft expert Conor Glassey pegs Farmer to be selected between the third and fifth rounds. Hall has his own projection.
“I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t pitch in the big leagues,” Hall said. “I think he definitely has that kind of stuff.”
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