Confident Mahoney Thrives in First Pro Season
August 20, 2024 - Northwest League (NWL)
Spokane Indians News Release
The outing was forgettable and almost inevitable after his highly successful stretch. Right-hander Jack Mahoney of Single-A Fresno earned California League Pitcher of the Month Honors for his exemplary June.
His good fortune included what is now a pitching rarity: a complete game. It was the first in Minor League baseball this season, a two-hit shutout June 21 during which Mahoney showed a feel for his craft by seamlessly dialing back one breaking pitch in favor of another.
When June ended, Mahoney began July with another stellar start and extended his consecutive scoreless string to 23.2 innings. Add in a very effective outing on May 31, and Mahoney put together a six-start stretch in which he was 2-0 with a 1.77 ERA, 36 strikeouts in 35.2 innings, seven walks and 28 hits allowed.
He was floating on a magic carpet ride that had to end. It came to a crashing conclusion July 11 at Lake Elsinore. In two innings, Mahoney allowed four runs on six hits and a walk with two strikeouts. He threw 50 pitches, just 27 strikes, and needed 38 pitches to complete a four-run second. He was hoping to go out for the third and "salvage this start."
But that elevated one-inning pitch count brought an automatic end to Mahoney's start per organizational rules. And it left him to rather quickly begin the search for meaning in a bad outing and subsequent improvement with a mature mindset for someone in his first full professional season.
"I think the biggest thing for me is I've been trying to embrace the success and the failure the same way," Mahoney said. "I think earlier in the year, maybe I'd have a good start, and obviously it's really easy to go back and watch it and watch you strike all these guys out or get all these guys out. But when you get punched in the mouth, it's obviously a little harder to click on the film and watch it pitch by pitch and see where you screwed up, right?
"But at the end of the day, I'm a firm believer in you learn a lot more from failure than you do success. So (it's) understanding that I'm in the minor leagues to kind of screw up a little bit and learn from that and have some bad outings and learn from those."
The Rockies selected Mahoney in the third round of the 2023 First-Year Player Draft out of South Carolina. He turns 23 on August 13 and profiles as a mid-rotation starter. In 17 starts at Fresno, Mahoney is 5-6 with a 3.52 ERA. He has logged a team-leading 94.2 innings and has allowed 87 hits and 22 walks with 91 strikeouts.
"He's got a very good four-pitch arsenal, and he's able to command all four pitches," Rockies Minor League Pitching Coordinator Doug Linton said. "Some guys with the power arsenal can't command a couple pitches. He's able to do it."
Actually, Mahoney throws five pitches - both a two- and four-seam fastball, as well as a slider, curveball and changeup. The fastballs average 94 mph, ranging from 92-97 mph with his four-seamer and 91-98 mph with his two-seamer. His fastball usage is roughly 60 percent four-seamers and 40 percent two-seamers. Mahoney's four-seam has carry, and his two-seam has late, sharp sink.
His slider averages 87 mph with an 84-90 mph range. It has improved over the course of the season and has depth and bite and a good deal more movement than early in the season. It projects to be a plus offering.
Mahoney has increased the use of his 76-83 mph curveball, which averages 80 mph. It has sharp, downward action and per the hands on a clock, follows a 1-7 path. It, too, projects as a plus pitch.
Mahoney's 84-88 mph changeup averages 85 mph. It has a little bit of depth, has flashed average and projects to be that. It has improved over the course of the season.
"Maybe not (as far as) just the action and the stuff, just his confidence in throwing it," Rockies Pitching Strategist Flint Wallace said. "... Now he just has a little bit more confidence that he can use it in the zone, (and he) knows how to throw it for a strike to (become) a ball. Just getting to use that more, that's drastically helped him, especially with the lefties.
"It's a pitch with fade. But when he attacks lefties, he's usually going four-seam/curveball. So it gives him something out of that tunnel with those pitches that just keeps them honest."
After his 17th start on July 27 at Stockton, when Mahoney (the winning pitcher in Fresno's 10-5 victory) threw a career-high 102 pitches, including 66 strikes, and allowed three hits and four runs in 7.2 innings with one walk and a career-high tying nine strikeouts, Mahoney had limited right-handed hitters to a .206 average while lefties were batting .270. Overall, opponents are batting .241 against Mahoney.
"He can get swings and misses with the slider, with the curveball, with the changeup to lefties, primarily," Rockies Assistant Director of Player Development Jesse Stender said. "And they all have at least big-league average movement. He really is becoming a pitcher (capable of throwing) any pitch in any count to any (hitter's) handedness. And it's very impressive because it's big stuff."
Mahoney is a strike-thrower, who has regularly been able to get ahead in counts. But over the course of the season, the quality of those strikes when he is ahead in the count has improved. He previously was catching too much of the plate and giving up hits with the count in his favor or throwing a pitch in those situations that was a ball right out of his hand and easily taken by a hitter.
"Early on especially," Fresno Manager Steve Soliz said, "he'd get ahead in the count and try to make the next breaking ball better than the last versus just moving it to a better location. He's locating the ball to areas when he's ahead in the count to put guys away."
Mahoney has another quality that can be learned with plenty of practice but is something he already possessed. Namely, he's very decisive.
"He studies the game," Soliz said. "He studies himself. He studies the opponent. And he's decisive on the mound. He knows what he wants to do and sets out to do it.
"I always tell these kids, the best players are the most decisive players. And that's something he has had from the start."
In his shutout against Stockton, Mahoney threw 95 pitches, 69 strikes. He threw first-pitch strikes to 20 of the 29 batters he faced. Mahoney retired the first 16 batters, gave up a one-out single in the sixth, then retired seven straight batters before allowing a two-out double in the eighth.
He did not issue a walk, struck out four, got 18 outs on ground balls and five on fly balls. Mahoney threw a game-high 15 pitches in the seventh and no more than 11 in any other inning. What helped Mahoney immensely was an adjustment he implemented at the suggestion of Linton.
He was filling in as Fresno's pitching coach so was in the dugout. After the fourth inning, Linton walked over to Mahoney and catcher Ben McCabe. To that point, Mahoney had been fastball-slider, Linton said, and a couple changeups. Linton approached the batterymates and said, "It might be time to start mixing in the curveball."
The Stockton hitters had seen virtually all hard stuff and, Linton said, were "starting to get on some pitches." Mahoney deftly incorporated his curveball.
"To bring out a pitch he hadn't been using yet in the ballgame, it made it so much easier to get through that game," Linton said. "The last five innings, they hadn't seen the curveball, and all of a sudden it became fastball/curveball/slider when before it was just a fastball/slider/changeup mix. He just started using the curveball more than the slider. But it complimented everything and helped him get through that complete game."
Summing up his stress level watching Mahoney during that memorable outing, Linton quipped, "In that complete game he threw in Fresno, I didn't have to get out of my rocking chair. It was that easy."
Mahoney's mound contributions aren't all he has added to the Fresno mix. It's not easy for a starting pitcher, who takes the mound in the Minors once a week, to be a leader. But Mahoney can fill that role as well to a large degree because of his personality.
"He's got wit, he's clever," Stender said. "He says what he thinks, but there's thought behind it. He mixes well in the clubhouse. He cracks jokes, he's entertaining. He brings a strong personality that makes other people better, helps people break out of their shells. It's the type of personality you need in a clubhouse to keep things from going stale."
Mahoney's outgoing, assertive and kindhearted nature was honed when he played quarterback at St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights, Ill., which is about 35 miles northwest of Chicago.
"I think quarterback has kind of equipped me with skills, vocal skills and whatever you want to call them, just to try and make everyone feel included," Mahoney said. "I found that if you're more open and no matter what your status is on the team, people are going to gravitate toward you."
Rockies Director of Player Development Chris Forbes said of Mahoney, "Guys like that seem to able to stir the drink."
Mahoney recalled a conversation with right-hander Collin Baumgartner, a reliever who began the season at Fresno and was promoted to Double-A Hartford toward the end of May.
"We were just kind of talking one day," Mahoney said. "In 30 years, no one's going to say, 'Oh man, you remember when Jack threw that complete game or something like that?' They're just going to kind of remember the guy I am and the person I was to be around. So I think that's just kind of one of my main focuses. ... I think the whole quarterbacking thing has definitely helped my development as a man and just someone (enjoyable) to be around. I think that's definitely also made this transition into pro ball and kind of being on my own a little easier. And it's been great meeting so many guys from different backgrounds."
Mahoney visited Iowa, Notre Dame and Ole Miss before South Carolina. His sister, Shea, was a gymnast at Alabama. Mahoney attended senior night for the gymnastics team during her senior year and was immediately drawn to the SEC.
"I couldn't just even imagine what the other sports were going to be like," Mahoney said, "because gymnastics was such a big deal in the SEC. I was like, 'Man, they're going to be passionate about all their sports.'
"That kind of triggered my want and need to go to the SEC. That kind of sparked my interest, and South Carolina was just the right fit for me."
During his freshman year, Mahoney ended up undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2021 and didn't pitch at all in 2022. In late February 2021, Mahoney felt something in his elbow but didn't think much of it.
"I just kind of pitched through it, I guess, until May," he said. "It never really got terribly bad. It was just kind of always there. I'd wake up and bending my arm was kind of uncomfortable. But I was pretty young. I was a freshman, so I didn't really know what was going on. And I just kind of figured if I could still throw, I could still help out my team. And I had a pretty good role as a freshman (relieving on weekends and starting mid-week games), so I just wanted to kind of keep doing that. And also being a freshman, I was a little nervous to say anything."
But during that fateful May outing, Mahoney said "the velocity was not there." Catcher Colin Burgess, who remains a friend of Mahoney's, called time and visited the mound along with former South Carolina pitching coach Skylar Meade, now the coach at Troy.
"They both kind of just said, 'Yeah, your day's done. Let's go get you checked out and get you taken care of.' Tough moment as a 19-year-old, but one that kind of needed to happen."
Mahoney had a couple tough moments this year in his first Spring Training as a professional, albeit not ones that involved his health and fitness to pitch. During Spring Training, the Rockies released right-hander Tyler Ras, whom they had selected in the 14th round of the 2021 First-Year Player Draft out of Alabama.
Ras is engaged to Mahoney's sister, Shea, the former Alabama gymnast. The wedding is scheduled for November. Forbes informed Ras of his release.
"Tyler knew it was coming," Forbes said. "Rarely do I call a guy in the room, and he's shocked."
But after the usual morning announcements, Forbes kept Mahoney back and asked him how he was doing. And Forbes said, "This is the part of the business that you have yet to hear about."
Forbes explained that instructional league, which Mahoney attended last September is kept up-tempo and positive and by design is a growth experience. Spring Training is different. Spring Training, as Forbes explained, has a trap door for an unfortunate few.
"We're trying to get the (farm) teams set and guys ready to go out (to the affiliates)," Forbes told Mahoney. "So your locker mate that you talked to for the last three-and-a-half weeks may not be there one day."
The following day after Ras was released, Forbes said Mahoney caught up with him and told Forbes, "how much he appreciated that conversation, because it's not something he felt like I needed to do."
Mahoney said that was his first experience as a professional with a player getting released. And it just happened to be his future brother-in-law. Mahoney was lifting weights at the Rockies' Salt River at Talking Stick complex in Scottsdale, Ariz., when pitcher Chase Dollander approached Mahoney and asked if Ras had been released.
"And I was like, 'No, what do you mean?'" Mahoney said. "Chase became friends with Tyler through me. And so Chase was a little taken back, too, just from knowing my sister. He just kind of pointed. And outside the weight room through the window, there went Tyler.
"It was a pretty crazy moment. My heart kind of sank pretty quick. And the rest of my workout wasn't great. Had to kind of realize at that moment that this really is a business. It's performance-based, and availability is your best attribute. Just had to learn quick that it's a business."
Not long after the release of Ras, the Rockies set the Opening Day rosters for their full-season farm clubs. After learning his destination was Fresno, Mahoney told Forbes he thought he was better than some of the starting pitchers assigned to High-A Spokane. He didn't name names. There was no bitterness or anger on Mahoney's part. It was a calm, rational discussion.
When Forbes asked how he felt about going to Fresno, Mahoney said, "Obviously, I'm going to be confident in myself. And I feel like I know myself. But obviously, I'm just kind of blessed to be where I'm at. Just kind of trying to be where my feet are."
While many members of his draft class were assigned to Fresno, Dollander and left-hander Sean Sullivan, who were drafted in the first and second rounds, respectively, last year, began the season at Spokane. Mahoney called them "two of my closer friends in the organization" and said they were all hoping to start the season with Spokane.
Forbes explained the decision to Mahoney. It had to do with the organization "finally getting some starter inventory" and the 2024 domestic Minor League roster limits reduced to 165 during the season. Forbes said players questioning their Opening Day assignment is not all that unusual and with Mahoney wasn't unexpected.
"He's a very confident kid," said Forbes, who had no problem with Mahoney voicing his opinion about his assignment and, indeed, welcomed it.
"I do like guys that take control of their careers when they're asking those questions," Forbes said. "I'd rather have a player who knows me come grab me versus having his agent call me a week later. And that happens too much."
NEXT HOME GAME: Tuesday, August 27th vs. Tri-City - 6:35 p.m. (Gates Open - 5:30 p.m.)
Promotion - Spokane County Interstate Fair Night presented by Cascadia Screen Printing: Calling all fair fans for a night of fun with face painting, a petting zoo, and more! A pair of tickets to the Spokane County Fair will be given away each inning courtesy of Cascadia Screen Printing. Enter at the game for your chance to win!
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