Apollo-Ridge grad Brandon Butler wraps up strong freshman season for Slippery Rock baseball team

Jeff Messer has been coaching baseball at Slippery Rock for four decades, so he knows a good player when he sees one. When he saw Apollo-Ridge grad Brandon Butler last fall during offseason workouts, he knew he had a future standout on his hands.

And the future came quickly.

When fall workouts were over, Messer met with Butler — as he does with all his players — and told him how impressed he was with his hitting ability. Messer also assured Butler that he would find a place for him in the lineup.

“From Day 1, he could always hit the fastball,” Messer said. “It didn’t matter who was throwing it or how hard it was thrown. … He was our most productive hitter and best hitter in the fall, and then it was just a matter of trying to find a position we thought would be best suited for him.”

Butler was installed at third base, and he rewarded Messer’s confidence.

He concluded his freshman season with a .339 batting average, which was fourth on the team, and also finished fourth on the team in hits (40) and RBIs (23). And for a young man who is all of 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds, he showed surprising pop, hitting three home runs.

Butler started 36 of the 37 games in which he appeared as SRU went 28-18 and 17-11 in the PSAC West. The Rock was defeated by then-No. 24 East Stroudsburg in the first round of the PSAC Tournament.

“Personally, I wanted to grow and work on myself more than anything,” Butler said about his goals for his freshman season. “This season went pretty well, but I wanted to do a little bit better than I did. And, most importantly, learn. I played a lot of games, so the game reps meant a lot to me … and playing with legit baseball players.”

For all the promise Butler showed in the run-up to the season, he got off to a slow start. Over the first month, from Feb. 25 to March 30, he hit a paltry .182, collecting only six hits, and three of those were in one game.

Then came the first PSAC West series of the year, against IUP, and Butler began to hit his stride. In the four-game series — The Rock won three — Butler went 6 for 13, scored twice and drove in three runs.

After a two-double, two-run performance against Mansfield, he had another big PSAC West series, this time against Cal (Pa.). He went 6 for 14 with five runs scored and three RBIs. By the end of the series, his batting average had skyrocketed to .313.

His average never dipped below .300 the rest of the season, topping out at .361 after a 4-for-5 performance against Gannon that also included three RBIs and a pair of runs scored. Twelve of his final 24 games were multihit outings.

“I was finding a lot of barrels. I felt very comfortable at the plate and at third,” Butler said. “Before that, it was hard transitioning. … I tell everybody that baseball is a ‘feel’ sport, so if you feel comfortable and are in that right mentality, then you’re more than likely going to do well.”

Adapting to third base also had its initial challenges.

Though he was recruited as an infielder, a logjam of infielders led Butler to spending most of the preseason playing outfield. But injuries among the infielders forced Messer to juggle his lineup, and a spot opened at third base.

Butler had the arm necessary to play the position, but playing the so-called hot corner requires more than arm strength.

“He was on-the-job training at third base for us,” Messer admitted. “He got better and better and better as the year went on. That’s one area he knows he’s working to improve on.”

Added Butler: “I’ve played everywhere. I’m that guy who can bounce around and go wherever he’s needed, and we needed a third baseman. It took me a little while to get comfortable there at the college level. … When you’re playing with grown men and the ball is hit over 100 (mph) at you, it’s a lot faster over there.

“But once I got comfortable with it, I felt totally fine.”

Butler committed a team-high eight errors, but Messer saw enough improvement that he said Butler likely would remain at third for the foreseeable future.

Now with a year of college baseball under his belt, Butler looks forward to an offseason of work to prepare for next season. At his aforementioned exit interview, Butler was asked by Messer what his goals were for the summer. Butler quipped that he would like to grow 3 or 4 inches.

Highly unlikely, but he also has a more feasible goal of putting on 10 pounds of muscle to further improve his hitting. Messer said he likes Butler’s short, quick swing that stays through the zone longer than many players. He also has been impressed with Butler’s willingness to learn to hit to all fields.

That will be important, Messer said, now that opposing coaches have seen his ability to hit the fastball.

“He likes to pull. He likes to use the inside of the plate, so to speak,” Messer said. “But there were balls at the end of the year that he stayed on. Even if he didn’t have a productive hit with it, he fought it off and fouled it off to where he got another pitch to hit.

“He started thinking about going to the right side more rather than pulling everything to the left side. … As more and more guys see him, they’re going to know that it’s hard to get a fastball by him.”

Seton Hill’s Owen Mandler was named the PSAC West Freshman of the Year, but Messer said he believes the award easily could have gone to Butler. Still, the coach said with the trajectory Butler is on, all-conference honors are sure to follow in the near future.

For his part, Butler is just looking to progress to the point that he can not only earn all-conference honors but play professionally some day.

“Overall, it wasn’t bad, freshman year,” he said. “It’s a learning experience, feeling comfortable. So I’m hoping these next few years, everything should be falling into place.”