Jeremy Sowers
Wareham 2002 & 2003
Pitcher
Vanderbilt
This may not add anything to the story of Jeremy Sowers on Cape Cod, but I thought I’d start with a personal touch.
Sowers and I both hail from Louisville, Ky., we’re the same age, and we both played for St. Matthews Little League. Sowers is one of the league’s famous alums, a list that also includes Jay Buhner, Mike Greenwell and Chris Burke. I am not exactly a famous alum, unless Right Field Fog carries more cache than I realize.
More to the point, I was terrible at baseball, like three-hits-a-year bad. And Jeremy Sowers was really good. There were other players who threw the ball harder and hit it farther, but Sowers, at an early age, was a real pitcher. I’m pretty sure he struck me out on several occasions, probably every chance I got against him. His twin brother, Josh, also struck me out many times (Josh went on to Yale and pitched for Wareham in 2004).
Now, I wasn’t great at the whole pitch recognition thing — I often decided before a pitch whether I would swing or not — so Jeremy Sowers striking me out doesn’t say much for his abilities.
But trust me when I say he was really good.
Six years later, he was still really good.
Sowers was drafted out of high school with the 20th overall pick in the 2001 draft by the Reds. He chose not to sign and instead headed to Vanderbilt. In the summer of 2002, he arrived and Wareham, where he began a really steady and impressive Cape League career.
That first summer, Sowers went 5-4 with a 1.52 ERA. Living up to his potential as a great control pitcher, Sowers walked 12 all summer and struck out 56 in 65.1 innings. Baseball America picked him as the league’s 10th-best prospect.
The next year, Sowers went 4-3 with a 1.20 ERA. He struck out 64 in 67 innings and walked just 17.
And if I had been playing in the Cape League, he probably would have struck me out, too. Just a guess.
After the Cape
Sowers was picked sixth overall in the 2004 draft by the Indians. He had outstanding numbers in the minors and made his debut with Cleveland in 2006. He has bounced between Triple A and the majors since then, but he spent most of 2009 in the bigs.
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