Chase Allsup shows growth and development in game one victory

The Auburn Tigers have seen their junior hurler take a giant leap forward

Auburn baseball starter Chase Allsup's always been able to throw hard. 

It's still hard, which is nice, but it's evolved into throwing it hard and where he wanted to. 

The junior from Dothan got the ball on Opening Day and gave Auburn a good outing: three earned runs through four and two-thirds innings, with five strikeouts. Both homers, given out in the 2nd inning, came on bad-luck pitches - a belt high fastball at 96 that just missed its location, and a low in the zone changeup that caught a bit too much of the plate. 

But despite the runs allowed, there was a big notable difference to the outing that wasn't there last year: Allsup didn't walk any of the twenty-one batters he faced. 

And that's a welcome change - Allsup walked 33 batters last season and only had four outings, all relief stints of one inning or less, with no walks. This was only the 4th start for Allsup of 4.2 innings or more since he's been at Auburn, and the only outing of more than two innings without a walk. 

Growth. 

That improved control was the goal of Chase's offseason work. 

"A lot of the things that we've been working on are just trying to clean some motions up." he explained earlier this week. "I mean, in the windup, I was kind of getting lost in my movements a little bit. So, we changed it to strictly (throwing from the) stretch. And then trying to just be more straight line to the plate, throwing more strikes. That was the biggest thing."

And it worked. 

Allsup scattered five hits throughout the game, with the fifth inning coming unraveled thanks to a bad luck error that extended the outing and allowed two (unearned) runs to score. 

But it was a big building block for the junior, getting his second consecutive start on Opening Day. 

Head baseball coach Butch Thompson was clear this week that the Opening Day honors for Allsup were deserved. 

 "We didn't give him this. He absolutely became more efficient in his innings pitched and I really wanted to carry it into the season." 

Last week, we discussed Allsup's ability to better land his secondaries for strikes, but the biggest change to Thompson was hitting a new level with the fastball: "The pitch that I've seen the most that is landing now is the fastball to his glove side - away from a righty, (but) into a lefty." 

🎯@chase_allsup5 gets the season started with a 1-2-3 frame.

M1 | Auburn 0, EKU 0 pic.twitter.com/uEPqh2M3eE

— Auburn Baseball (@AuburnBaseball) February 17, 2024

And the draft-eligible junior has an outsized role to play on this Auburn team - despite returning Joseph Gonzalez to the rotation after an injury-marred 2023, Allsup's actually the third-most experienced pitcher on Auburn's staff, with 78.2 career innings entering tonight. 

(Joseph Gonzalez is 1st, with 125.2, followed by UAB transfer Carson Myers with 100.) 

Allsup said that experience was helpful for him as he's gotten deeper into his career and is working on refining specific aspects of pitching. Thompson mentioned the efficiency, and Allsup followed up what efficiency means on the mound:  

"I feel like that's something that I have gotten better at. [...] How quickly can you end the at bat, or getting the first two out of three pitches be strikes. So getting ahead early, staying ahead, and then finishing the at bat as quick as possible."

The addition of pitching coach Everett Teaford, formerly in minor league player development with the Chicago White Sox, has allowed the staff as a whole to better understand how they work as pitchers, an aspect that Allsup feels has made him a better pitcher. 

"We've always had the Trackman since I've been here, but the understanding of what the data that is being put out there for us and how to actually recognize what's going on in that aspect of it. 

He's done a really good job of explaining 'hey, your numbers need to look like this because this is your arsenal' - mine is different than John's because we're two different styles of pitchers. But really just being able to understand like how your arsenal works the best and how to bring it to a higher point."

But despite better understanding what he's doing on the mound and how his body wants to do it, Allsup insisted that he's not solely responsible for the success of each pitch. 

"I gotta rely on Cooper (McMurray) and the guys behind me just as much as they're relying on me to throw strikes," pointing out how much work the defense as a whole puts in to live up to one of Thompson's mantras, "Dominate the Routine Play." 

Despite some hiccups in the defense for game one, Thompson was happy with the effort. "I'm evaluating processes more than results here - I think I'm in a good place with this team." 

And he's in a good place with Allsup. "Chase was dominant in the first and third innings, and he was absolutely still around the strike zone (in the 2nd)." 

"I feel like he's growing."