The climb continues for Jake Alu.
The Hamilton Township product clawed to within one step of the Major Leagues this summer after the Washington Nationals promoted him from Double- A Harrisburg to the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings on July 12.
Alu wasn’t sure it would happen, but wasn’t surprised when it did.
“The Nationals keep things pretty under wraps, and you don’t know anything or hear anything and things just kind of happen,” the Princeton Day School graduate said. “I got a little bit of a feel about it, I was having a decent season at Double-A, I had a decent season for half the year there last year. I kind of felt I proved I could get to the next level.
“With the draft coming up I felt a lot of stuff happened. There were gonna be a lot of moving parts. So I would say I felt something was gonna happen in that time but I didn’t know the exact time frame of it,” he said.
It has been a steady progression for the 25-year-old since Washington drafted him out of Boston College in 2019. He was first assigned to Short-Season-A Auburn and hit .257 with 25 RBI in 45 games. Alu was looking to build off of that before Covid-19 shut down baseball.
Rather than sulk over losing momentum in his career, the former Nottingham Little League star didn’t merely make lemonade with the lemons he was dealt. He opened up a whole stand.
“The Covid year was what you made of it,” Alu said. “I know guys sat back and didn’t really do much, but I took it as an advantage to get a lot stronger, put on more muscle and add power to my game. That whole time, I was really getting after it in the gym rather than doing a bunch of baseball stuff that I’m used to in the off-season. When you’re playing, you still need to focus on baseball stuff instead of being able to get stronger and faster.”
Alu was assigned to Class-A Wilmington at the start of last year and hit .303 with 10 doubles, five homers and 19 RBI in 39 games, earning him a promotion to Harrisburg in July. He batted .264 with 12 doubles, five homers and 23 RBI and returned to the Senators to start this year.
After a strong first half in which Alu hit .281 with 25 doubles, nine homers and 36 RBI, he was called into manager Tripp Keister’s hotel room.
It came in the midst of putting some miles on his odometer.
“We had a Sunday game in Harrisburg and we were playing out in Hartford, Connecticut, so I drove home that night and stayed the night in Jersey to cut the ride in half,” Alu said. “I ended up going into Hartford, coach called me in the room after about a half hour and they told me I was getting called up. So I ended up hitting the road again that night and went straight to Rochester.”
Despite gas prices being what they are, Jake didn’t mind. He was just happy to have bluetooth.
“It was about a five-hour drive, but I was pumped up,” Alu said. “I was talking to a lot of people who reached out. That was a fun ride.”
As of July 27 and through his first nine games with Rochester, Alu was batting .227 (7-for-31) with a double, homer and four RBI. The jump in levels has not overwhelmed him where pitching is concerned, as he feels it was a bigger adjustment from A-ball to Double-A.
“That was the biggest “Wow” factor for me,” Alu said. “I think Double-A kind of separates the men from the boys. The pitchers in Double-A have a pitch where it’s actually insane how nasty it is or how aggressive and how good their fastball is. They go up to Triple-A and are there for a few weeks and a lot of them get called up.
“So when you get to Triple-A, there may not be as many guys that have that crazy pitch or that one thing that makes them really special once they figure out the other things. In Triple-A, everything is figured out. They have each of their pitches, they’re able to throw them for strikes. Hitters command the zone really well, they make pitchers be in the zone rather than swinging at stuff that helps pitchers out.”
Alu also feels that Triple-A is somewhat more laid back as opposed to other levels of the minors.
“They kind of trust you to get what you need done,” he said. “If you feel like you need ground balls, you go up to one of the coaches prior and say, ‘Hey, can you hit me 15, 20 ground balls a day,’ rather than having a set list of what we’re gonna do that day as a team. That’s the biggest difference I’ve seen so far.”
Alu’s glove could actually be the key to his making it to The Show. While his bat is important, the versatile defender is being groomed for several different positions.
He played third base for the entire time he was at Harrisburg this year. “They seem to really like me over there and that’s where they see me project as for the big league team,” he said.
But he also had a conversation with Washington director of player development De Jon Watson, who wants Alu to also “play a good second base as well as a little bit of outfield if I could do that.”
Alu is confident in his ability in the outfield and at least three different spots in the infield, which he feels could give him an inside track should the Nationals need someone.
“If a guy goes down up there, if you’re a guy that can be able to get tossed in the outfield and be able to play all three spots or two spots in the infield you add a lot of value to yourself because they save a roster spot, they don’t have to bring up two guys to play those positions,” he said. “They can just bring you up and keep another pitcher. From [Triple A], obviously you can play your way into the big leagues, but at this point if you play well it’s kind of a lot of luck and just being able to get that shot.”
Alu has been happy with his progress to date. He terms himself his biggest critic and uses a bad game as motivation to go out and play better the next day. It has been his M.O. since Little League, and it has worked so far.
Despite the fact he is one step away from MLB, he can’t focus on the big picture. All he can do is keep grinding.
“They don’t really say anything (about being called up) until the time comes,” Alu said. “There have been a few notions here and there of guys kind of saying ‘When I get up there they want me to be the same guy,’ just that kind of slippage when you say that kind of stuff. But I haven’t heard anything. They keep it pretty low.
“You just can’t be too far in the future, you gotta stay in the present. That’s kind of how I’ve always played. Just put my head down, play as hard as I can,” he said.
So far, that attitude has led to continuous upward climb. All that’s left now is the biggest step of all.
Hamilton’s Jake Alu hit .281 with 25 doubles and 9 home runs in 73 games with Double-A Harrisburg this season, earning him a call-up to Triple-A Rochester. (Photo courtesy of the Washington Nationals.),
