The Cowboys lost a lot of pitching last year, and have brought in several transfers, and very talented young pitchers out of High School to “reload”, because rebuilding has never been an option for Oklahoma State Baseball.
Brian Holiday was one of the best-starting pitchers in the Country, Sam Garcia was one of the most consistent, and Tommy Molsky and Robert Cranz were 2 of the better relievers in all of College baseball.
So, this year’s staff has big shoes to fill, but there’s a lot of talent that has returned to campus, and today’s article is meant to make you more familiar with them.
Gabe Davis is a 6’9 Junior out of Choctaw who played for former Cowboy standout, Shane Hawk as a Yellow Jacket. Davis is maybe the most talented pitcher in College Baseball and is coming off of a great summer where he pitched for Team USA. So, he’s built a lot of momentum, and that’s a good thing because for OSU to make Omaha he’s gonna have to pitch to his potential.
Davis has been shuffled through every role for OSU since arriving on campus, from long reliever to closer to Sunday starter, to, now, Friday night starter. Harrison Bodendorf and Hunter Watkins have been the Saturday and Sunday starters, and they are both new to the program, so it’s crucial this team can rely on Davis to get each series off to a good start.
Davis features a fastball that has touched 100 in a game, a filthy slider and creates steep angles with his length. At 6’9, his extension numbers have to be good, so it probably feels to hitters as if he is handing the ball to the catcher.
I am always hesitant to put too many eggs in one basket or to place too much pressure on any one player’s shoulders, but the progress of Davis is crucial to this team, and I just don’t see any other way around that.
Harrison Bodendorf is a 6’5 left-handed pitcher who is originally from Temecula, California and transferred in from Hawaii this past off-season. Bodendorf is a Junior who brought 114 innings of College experience with him and posted a 4.03 ERA with the Rainbow Warriors.
So, he wasn’t dominant at Hawaii, and he hasn’t been dominant so far with OSU, but that’s fine. OSU doesn’t need him to be dominant, they need him to be consistent, to eat innings, and to turn the ball over to the bullpen in a position for his team to win the game.
For instance, he gave up 4 runs in the 1st inning in his start against UTA, but then settled down, went 5, and didn’t give up any more runs for the day. As a result, the game stabilized, the offense took over, the bullpen did its thing and OSU won going away.
The competition will stiffen as Conference play begins, but that example is just being used as a blueprint for all this team needs from Bodendorf.
But, make no mistake, he has good stuff and is capable of more. Against Louisville, a great opponent, he went 5, gave up 2, and had 6 Ks.
I haven’t been able to nail down Bodendorf’s exact mix, in terms of terminology, but he throws a really nice backfoot slider-shaped pitch, a good change-up, and a fastball that plays well off of those pitches.
Bodendorf crossfires, meaning he lands on the 1st base dugout side, so he should be very effective against lefties. Combine that with the backfoot pitch to righties, the change of speeds, and throwing to the perimeter, and there’s a lot to like.
Hunter Watkins is a talented, skilled 6’9 Sophomore right-handed pitcher who transferred to OSU from Grand Canyon. Watkins is from Simi Valley, California. The Cowboys are looking for lightning to strike twice because the last player the Cowboys got from Simi Valley was Justin Campbell, who also was an angular right-handed pitcher.
Watkins’s fastball has flashed in the 93 range so far, and he features a 12-6 breaking ball that is unhittable when he buries it in the dirt and hitters chase.
The mark of a quality pitcher is whether or not they can give their team a good outing, and, equally important, length in a game when things aren’t perfect, especially when they start as imperfect as his last start. In his last start, he gave up 3 in the 1st inning, which is far from perfect, but he grinded to give his team 5 solid innings. Like Bodendorf, it gave the offense time to catch up, and by the time he handed the ball off, his team had control of the game.
Watkins threw 47 innings last year as a freshman at Grand Canyon, posted a 3.83 ERA, and had 47 Ks, so 1 K per inning shows he has some “swing and miss” to his offerings. He only walked 13, so for a freshman to post a 3.6 to 1 K/BB ratio is very impressive. The WAC isn’t the best baseball conference in America, but it is good baseball, so his time at Grand Canyon was good.
Mario Pesca is another very imposing right-handed pitcher who checks in at 6’8. Pesca is a Junior who transferred from St. Johns, which has been a good pitching school over the years, and is originally from the Bronx, so you know he’s tough.
Pesca threw 110.1 innings in his 2 years with the Johnnies and posted a 2.96 last year as a Sophomore. He hasn’t been a high K rate type, but he does carry a big slider in his bag, which means he should be able to pitch to contact safely.
Pesca has a great slider, and a fastball he can turn right, which I’m assuming is a 2-seam, in the 91ish range. Also, because he’s 6’8, the ride he generates at the top of the zone really makes the ball look like it’s rising. And, also, because of how high the ball comes out of his hand when he carries the bottom of the zone, it has to look to a hitter like the pitch is headed straight into the dirt. So, tough to pull the trigger on the low pitch that carries the zone, and tough not to swing at the Fastball at the top that rides above your swing.
Then, combine that with his left and right turns, and it’s not hard to see why he has been so good in his Collegiate career to this point.
Another factor that I think will be very big for him is that he seems to have easy power, which suggests he could be a “bulk-inning” type pitcher, in whatever part of the game he’s asked to pitch. And, pitchers that can pitch “bulk innings”, and are versatile enough to pitch in whatever part of the game you need, are invaluable.
Stay tuned for more on this guy, he’s almost assuredly gonna play a big role on this year’s staff.
Sit down in your favorite chair, grab some popcorn, start a fire, get your favorite beverage, and settle in because we’re getting ready to cover the young bullpen arms, And, I could talk about them all day and twice on Sundays. Noah Wech, Ethan Lund, and Stormy Rhodes are the pitching equivalents of Garrett Shull and Brock Thompson because they have a “Treasure Trove” of tools.
It’s just a matter of them settling them, defining their exact plans, and then working to master their sequences and execution. And, injury notwithstanding, it’s not “if” it’s “when”.
Noah Wech is a very talented 6’1 Freshman Right-Hander from Manitowoc Wisconsin. Wech has faced very adverse conditions thus far from horrible officiating to untimely errors behind him, and he stands unfazed. So, that goes to speak to the mentality.
And, speaking of his mentality, he’s a bulldog and a very fiery competitor and his arm is big, he’s already touching 96. But, what is so exciting for me is that he settled down in his last outing and started landing his cutter. His fastball is gonna play and has a slight right turn at times, so if he can land his cutter, and make hitters honor a left turn, he’s gonna be very good. His curveball has great depth, and he pairs that with a bullet-shaped cutter, so his 3-pitch mix is very good, and the sky is the limit for this dude.
Ethan Lund is a 6’6 left-hander from Fishers, Indiana, who is able to put a lot of backspin on the ball. That’s important because that means his ball carries very well through the zone, which means the ball doesn’t decelerate on the way to the plate as much as the average pitch, so it looks faster to hitters.
In common terms, his ball explodes when it gets to the hitter. and especially when he uses his fastball at the top of the zone. His fastball also carries the bottom of the zone, meaning, instead of dropping out of the zone, his low pitches, because they have such great spin, will stay tall enough to be a strike. Lund has also shown a bullet-shaped pitch, and we’ll learn more about the overall mix as he gets into more games.
This dude has great stuff, is super competitive, carries himself with confidence, and is already hitting in the 94 range. So he’s another young one where the sky’s the limit.
Stormy Rhodes is another talented freshman pitcher from Kerrville Texas that has easy power created by a very smooth delivery.
Rhodes threw 3 scoreless innings in relief against Louisville in his College debut, so not only is he good, but the stage hasn’t been too big.
There is a lot to unpack in terms of the skill he puts on display, especially for a freshman. He’s shown a ton of skill throwing a right-turning 2-seam fastball, a bullet-shaped cutter, and a curveball that has great depth. He’s already gotten swing-and-miss against great hitters with “ride and run” at the top of the zone with his fastball.
The sequencing and pitch shaping that he uses have become very popular in professional baseball again because the tight lateral movements are super effective against all of the upper-planed vertical swings of today’s game. The way he shapes his pitches, the fact that his turns are so tight, and his “lack of fear” climbing back into counts, are super impressive. Way, Way above his years! Gonna be fun to watch him grow!
Ryan Ure might be the most intriguing pitcher on the staff, and, beyond Gabe Davis, maybe the most important. Ure had Tommy John a couple of years ago, and missed all of 2023. So, he used last year to get things back on track, in short bursts in relief.
On my sister site, Dodgers Daily, we cover a ton of pitchers in their system that have had Tommy John. Seemingly every one of their pitching prospects has had that surgery, so we have a lot of experience covering the recovery to TJ. And, almost exclusively, what pitchers say in recovery is that the first year back there is not pain, but that nothing feels the same. And, because nothing feels the same, it greatly affects execution.
Further, they will almost all tell you that it’s not until the 2nd year back where all the true “feels” make their way back, and the execution catches up with the stuff.
I really think this is the path Ure is on. He was good last year, but his execution so far this year seems to have taken a leap. And, if that happens, and it matches his stuff, OSU has a “premiere” left-handed college pitcher on their hands.
And, there is absolutely 0 exaggeration to that, because Ure has that much talent. And that’s not my opinion; it comes from folks who know a lot more about this stuff than I do.
He was drafted in the 19th Round this past off season and decided to return.
Ure started Wednesday against Abilene Christian and turned in his longest outing of his career, which was 3 innings. He’s been closer to the 92-94 range so far in 2025, but we’ve seen his fastball approach 100 in games in the past, and there’s no reason why that won’t happen again this year as he stretches out.
Of course, if he’s moved to a starters role, that won’t allow him to “max out”, so that in and of itself will limit the velo aspect of his arsenal, but, still, even as a starter, he has the potential to be consistently mid 90s with devastating breaking stuff. His slider to both the back door and back foot of righties is a “wipe out” pitch.
Jake Kennedy is a 6’2 Right-Handed Sophomore hurler out of Enid High School, where he played for OSU Hall of Famer, Brad Gore.
Kennedy fills the zone up, can change arm slots, throws a really nice change up with both fade & tumble, can ride the top of the zone, and can cut his FB on the inner half. His type of mix needs reps, because it requires a high degree of execution, so he needs mound time to stay sharp.
Kennedy went 1.1 scoreless Wednesday against ACU, had 2Ks and no walks, so it was a very good debut for the native Oklahoman.
Brennan Phillips is a 6’1 Sophomore out of Owasso who pitches out of relief. He’s one that has started games, been 1 inning relief, and been a lefty specialist. He has 8 starts total at OSU, including the Semifinal game of the Big 12 tournament in 2023 against Texas Tech. He got the win in that game and struck out 7, so he has the potential to be a big piece to this staff, in whatever role they need him.
Phillips has a good fastball, but his calling card is the big sweeper that can hit the back foot of righties, but is especially tough for lefties to stay on and hit. He seemed to gain some confidence Wednesday, albeit in just 2/3rds of an inning, but that was the part of the puzzle he needed to put together, and he did it well.
Kyle Bade is a very talented 5-10 Sophomore Left-Handed pitcher from Plano High School. Bade has been used exclusively in relief to this point, and there have been no indications that is going to change any time soon.
After a rocky outing against Texas, Bade threw 2 great shutout innings against UTA, then backed that up with a good outing against ACU. So, he’s built some momentum, and the roles for this bullpen seem to be fairly wide open, and he is in the mix of being a good contributor.
Drew Blake is one that is special for me because I grew up with his uncle Ryan, and know his family very well. So, I know the kind of folks the Blakes are, and I know what kind of athletes they are as well.
His uncle Kevin was a safety at OSU in the late 80s, early 90s, and his dad Randy was a great athlete as well. His uncle Ryan was a tremendous athlete and has worked in administration at Stillwater Public Schools for several years.
So, he came very well vetted, and he hasn’t disappointed!
Blake has flashed great stuff, a competitive element and the ability to be very effective since the day he arrived on campus. In fact, it seems like he’s been at OSU for 10 years, because he started helping almost immediately after getting to campus.
He pitched last summer as a starter in the NECBL so he can pitch in any role.
His slider is big time when it’s on, because it changes shapes (Cutterish) to land, he adds depth to it for swing and miss & his fastball had great carry. Blake can get swing and miss while challenging hitters with pitches in the zone, which is absolutely crucial for bullpen pieces.
His outing last year against TCU was a gem!
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Loved your comments, your love for the game is obvious.