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Dodgers 17-year-old pitching phenom was introduced to a much larger audience at Sunday's MLB Futures Game, and the left-hander did not disappoint. Urias threw a perfect inning for the World team in the fifth, including one strikeout, throwing 11 strikes in his 14 pitches.
"He was composed. Whoom! Whoom! Whoom! My goodness gracious," said U.S. team manager Tom Kelly, per the Associated Press.
Urias has opened eyes within baseball, striking out more than a batter per inning and holding his own in the hitter friendly California League. Just last week Urias was named the Dodgers top prospect - over highly-regarded hitting prospects Corey Seager and Joc Pederson - in midseason rankings by both Baseball America (No. 13 overall in baseball) and Baseball Prospectus (No. 15). Keith Law of ESPN will release his midseason rankings this week, but in the preseason Law had Urias ranked No. 14.
Before the Futures Game, Urias stood out among several players as a player that MLB team executives wanted to watch.
He did not disappoint on Sunday, on the big stage at Target Field in Minnesota.
Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports took the Urias baton and ran with the idea, floating the possibility of Urias pitching in the majors before turning 19 in August 2015. But the best part of the article is listening to other top prospects talking about Urias:
"I remember last year I faced him in Fort Wayne," said Hunter Renfroe, the Padres' first-round pick in 2013 out of Mississippi State. "I'd just gotten moved up and was hearing about this 16-year-old they had. I was like, a 16-year-old? No chance he's any good.
"I'm hitting third. And of course the first two guys who go up there, he throws three straight fastballs by them. I'm wondering what happened. They didn't even look that hard. So I get up there and watch the first pitch. That one kind of got on me a little bit. Next pitch I swung and fouled it straight back. I'm thinking, 'I'm on you now.' Next pitch is a curveball, and I walked back to the dugout."
"He's unbelievably composed," Seager told Passan. "His maturity is through the roof."
For all the growing hype, Urias seems ready for the challenge.
"It's what God gave me and that's what I do, and there's no reason to be nervous," Urias said, per the AP.