To watch him on the mound these days, you would never know that there was a time Cody Astbury was nervous about pitching.
And yet there he was, all of 8-years old, feeling a little tense.
“I wasn’t really that tall in little league,” Astbury said. “But, one game, my coach wanted me to pitch. I really didn’t want to, I was a little nervous about doing it. But I tried it and after that first time I pitched for the rest of my life.”
Astbury went from Sunnybrae Little League to Hamilton Babe Ruth, where he starred in last year’s run to the District One championship.
This past spring, he went 7-2 for Hamilton West’s baseball team with a glittering ERA of 1.43. He basically looked at the season as just doing his job.
“I thought it was pretty good,” the junior right-hander said. “I came out and did what I could. I feel like I kept us in the games we did lose and I felt I did what I was supposed to.
“My only goal was just to pretty much keep us in all the games I pitched in. (Hornets coach Mark) Pienciak wanted me to be that guy this year, so I felt like I had to come out and prove myself and I felt I did that.”
As good as the high school season was, Astbury started the American Legion season even more impressively. During his first three games he was 3-0 and allowed just one run in his first 17 innings. He pitched two five-inning shutouts in games Broad Street Park won by the 10-run mercy rule, then carried a perfect game into the fifth inning against Hopewell on Father’s Day before finally yielding his first run in the sixth inning.
“I didn’t really feel different,” he said of the jump from high school to his first legion season. “I didn’t feel like it was a big break between the two seasons and it just kind of carried over. I just kept throwing bullpens right into legion and just kept it up.”
Broad Street Park manager Mike Petrowski, who has been West’s pitching coach for the past two years, feels Astbury has become a true pitcher this year.
“He’s probably better than a lot of high school pitchers I’ve seen throwing three pitches for strikes,” said Petrowski, a former Steinert and Rider University hurler. “You just go with that, they don’t know what’s coming. He keeps them on their heels, you can see them get off the plate. He throws the ball inside now, that gets them off the plate too, keeps them honest.”
Astbury has benefitted from a strong defense behind him in high school and legion. But third baseman John Lansing feels that Astbury’s style of pitching helps keep his fielders on their toes.
“Cody’s not gonna give the team extra at-bats,” Lansing said. “He doesn’t walk people. If they’re getting on base they’re getting hits. He keeps us on our toes.
“He’s been pitching unbelievable. I guess that’s confidence for everyone on the field as well because you know that he’s gonna be throwing good pitches and you just have to be ready to back him up.”
During the high school season, Astbury’s only two losses were to Steinert and West Windsor-Plainsboro South. The latter was a 1-0 setback in which “he had one bad pitch. It was the only spot he couldn’t put it in and he did,” Petrowski said.
“The Steinert game was his first start of the year. He had absolutely nothing and gutted his way through it. After that he was lights out.”
Petrowski began working with Astbury as a sophomore and felt one of his biggest drawbacks was a reluctance to pitch inside. That changed this past season.
“He was young last year, he didn’t want to keep anything in,” the coach said. “The big thing this year is he’s able to locate his fastball inside to righties. That’s really helped him a lot.”
“I threw a lot of bullpens this year and he told me when I go in there just tell the catcher to throw a spot up and I’d try to hit it,” Astbury said. “I would tell the catcher to put up a lot of inside pitches and that’s what I’d try for.
“He calls my pitches so I guess early in the season I proved that I could throw the inside fastball, and I guess by the end of the year he had the confidence I could do it.”
But pitchers cannot live by inside fastballs alone. As Petrowski noted, what has really helped Astbury is the ability and confidence to get all three pitches over the plate.
“He’s the definition of buying into what I was saying and preaching in high school,” the coach said. “I preach throwing all pitches for strikes. I called three-two change-ups and curveballs at least 10 times this year with him. He can throw any pitch on any count. If you can do that you really have them off balance.”
Astbury actually traded a pitch in his arsenal, as he junked a knuckleball in favor of a changeup, to go along with his curve and fastball.
“I learned the changeup my sophomore year. He taught it to me, and the first time I threw it in a game was against Trenton, and I hit the kid with it,” Astbury said with a laugh. “So I figured I needed to work on that a little bit more. I worked on that during the rest of the season.”
With his ability to throw three pitches for strikes, Astbury has become dangerous even when he’s not at his best.
“He’s just picked up in legion season where he left off in high school,” Petrowski said. “After the North Hamilton game (a 13-0 BSP win), I thought it was the worst game I’ve seen him throw in a month or two, and he still threw a shutout. When you have that third pitch it’s huge. One’s not working, but maybe the other two are.”
Astbury possesses a pitcher’s build, as he is tall and lean and still filling out. He has a strong off-season work ethic as well, and has that special intangible of remaining poised on the mound regardless of what is happening.
“He never questions an umpire, he leaves that to us,” Petrowski said. “He doesn’t get upset if someone makes an error. You can’t teach that, he’s pretty much born with that.
“As much as you like that and try to teach it, it’s not possible. He’s even keeled on the mound but comes off the mound to the dugout and shows a little fire, especially after gives up a run or two, he gets mad.”
In looking at his statistics this year, he hasn’t gotten mad very often.
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