Late bloomer

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The Scouting News has been updated with a new article of interest ...

Lars Leweck

Class of 2012 RHP Lars Leweck: late-bloomer coming on strong judging by the latest and greatest on the scouting grapevine.

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Potential low round draft pick

I found my recruiting profile on the Perfect Game USA website. It said ...

Lars Leweck is a 2012 RHP/3B with a 6-2 160 lb. frame from San Diego, CA who attends St Augustine. Medium sized frame, slender build, 3/4 arm slot, long arm action, balanced delivery, has an idea, works ahead, 10/4 CB, throws CB with confidence, sets up hitters well, square stance at plate, rotational swing, contact approach, very good student.

The scouts gave me a PG Grade of 7 which according to their 1-10 scale means I am a ...

Potential low round (draft) pick, DI prospect or top level Juco, DII

Los Angeles

Last week my dad and I made the trip up to Los Angeles where I had the opportunity to visit with two colleges in Los Angeles.

We drove up Thursday night to beat the traffic and then stayed at my cousin’s house, which is about 15 minutes from my first appointment on Friday morning: Occidental College’s baseball camp.

At the camp, myself and another player named Riley Sissung were the only true pitchers so we worked out together for the majority of the day. The pregame ritual of the starting pitcher at Oxy is to play the PS3 that they have in their clubhouse; Coach Wetmore gave us the full treatment and let us play video games before we both pitched. I pitched three half innings and did very well, striking out 5 and not letting up a hit.

After the camp, all of the upcoming seniors were provided a tour of the campus by one of the senior players at Oxy; we even went to the ‘all you can eat’ dining house where I took full advantage. I really enjoyed playing there ... Oxy really captured my interest.

Later that day, my dad and I drove about a half hour to Claremont McKenna College where we met with Coach Town for ninety minutes at the baseball field. He gave us some insight into the school, the team and the league and then showed us around the facility. This was my second visit to the school, and it is also one I am interested in.

Both Oxy and Claremont McKenna compete in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for Division III schools. All in all, it was a great day and well worth the hours of traffic going home.



Oxy Baseball Field




Oxy Clubhouse - home of the PS3




Claremont McKenna Baseball Field



2011 Team One West Showcase

I was invited to the Team One West Showcase in Costa Mesa, CA on July 9-10. When the pitching schedule was announced, I was really happy to have the starting slot in the very first game. Since I would only be pitching at the showcase, my commitment was to drive up Saturday morning, throw my two innings at the 10:00am game, and then would get back to San Diego by noon. Pretty sweet!

As much as I want to do well at these showcases, so do the batters. I didn’t see the other team during their batting practice, but the first batter gave me a wakeup call that they came to hit. I tried to get ahead with a low fast ball on the first pitch, which he promptly sent into center field. Okay, time to sharpen up!

It went well after that, and I nearly got through my two innings without a run scored. With runners on first and third, I caught the runner on first off the bag, but the defense bit too hard on him and let the runner on third score. I am pretty sure my high school coach would have had ‘words’ for the infield on that play.

I have been working with my pitching coach on my fastball, and we made a slight change to my delivery. The adjustment has proven itself in practice, but I have not had enough repetition yet and tend to take a little pace off my fastball in games to help with placement. I guess there is never a good time to work on things, but I must keep improving my game.

Here are videos of the two innings I pitched.

First inning

Second inning

2011 Firecracker Classic Tournament

The So Cal Dirtbags played in the 2011 Firecracker Classic Tournament (18U), hosted by USA Premier Baseball. The schedule was for July 1-6, which falls on top of my favorite holiday of the year... Fourth of July.

Since I am now a starting pitcher, my weekend schedule improved dramatically when my coach said I just needed to be at the third game on July 3rd. And it gets better. Even though this is an Orange County tournament, the third game would be at San Diego State University... in my town of San Diego.

The first three games were pool play, and the Dirtbags had lost their first two games. For the third game we were matched against the ASD Bulldogs, and they were 2-0. We were going to have to win by a lot, and pray a bit as only two teams from our pool would advance.

I pitched the first three innings, where the only run I gave up was in the second inning after hitting the leadoff batter. It was looking like a very costly mistake when we had yet to score a run, but luckily our bats came alive in the bottom of the third inning, and we rolled to a 3-2 victory.

Unfortunately, our game score wasn’t enough for our team to advance out of pool play, but it was a privilege for me to pitch on the same mound as Stephen Strasburg and countless other Division 1 players. After sitting in the stands at Tony Gwynn Stadium, I was pretty stoked to be on the other side of the fence.

Oh, and the Bulldogs went on to the Finals where they lost to the San Diego Gamers.