Scott brothers have Barlow baseball on a roll
Will Scott says there is one drawback to playing shortstop when his big brother pitches.
“Unfortunately, I don’t get a whole lot of action,” the Joel Barlow junior said. “He has a lot of strikeouts most games and right-handers hit the ball a lot (late) to the right side. But it’s a lot of fun to watch him.”
Each start by Matt Scott this spring has attracted a flock of major league scouts. They are there with their radar guns and cameras and discerning eyes. We saw this last year with East Catholic’s Frank Mozzicato as he rose from a projected second- or third-rounder to a low firstrounder to — surprise! — No. 7 overall in the MLB draft.
The truth is it’s impossible to know when all but the top few names will be called out. This much we do know. Little bro — well, Will isn’t so little — is only a few feet away to lend a hand.
“As you can imagine, being the brother of Matt Scott probably isn’t the easiest thing in the world,” Barlow coach Matt Griffiths said. “The funny thing is if we didn’t have Matt Scott, all anyone would be talking about is Will Scott.
“He’s a phenomenal player. As much as Matt is the beating heart of our pitching staff, Will is the beating heart of our offense.”
Griffiths calls Scott the kind of kid every coach dreams about coaching. He does everything right, he says. He’s a great leader.
When you have a shortstop like him, Griffiths says, sometimes you take for granted some of the things he does at 6-4, 200 pounds.
“It gets normalized,” Griffiths said. “He doesn’t make mistakes in the field. At the plate, he leads us.”
Will is hitting .462. His on-base percentage is .553.
“I’m not thinking about anything else, I’m just going up there having fun swinging,” Will said. “Staying within myself, not trying to do much, shorten my swing, trying to go to the opposite field and good things hap
pen.”
Despite his size, he’s comfortable and flexible at short.
“He’s kind of like Cal Ripken, that style,” Griffiths said. “He runs a 6.9 60. He hits for power. I’ve been coaching 20-plus years. He’s the best (Connecticut high school) shortstop I’ve seen.
“To get that production as a coach obviously is huge. To get the character piece and the leadership we get from him is amazing.”
After avenging an early-season loss to New Milford on Friday, Barlow took a 13-2 record into Saturday’s game against Masuk. The team, ranked No. 8 in the GameTimeCT poll, is rolling. Matt — 6-6, 230 with a fastball hitting the mid-90s — is unbeaten. He has a 0.219 ERA and opponents are hitting .119 against him.
“Inhuman numbers,” Griffiths said. “We probably had 30 MLB teams at his last start. At the start of the season, we had lowerlevel guys. Every week that level gets higher to the point where multiple teams had their top guys.”
Yes, there is an element of suspense and excitement in Redding.
Are we seeing the next Charlie Morton? Will said the brothers haven’t met the Braves pitcher, drafted in the third round in 2002, “but we all still look up to him here.”
“It’s fun for me to see Matt do well in front of a big crowd,” Will said. “It’s also fun for the guys on field. Winning in front of scouts and people gives exposure to everyone, which is nice.
“Matt has handled it great. I don’t think he’s ever nervous. I’ve never seen him rattled. He’s almost lost like in tunnel vision when he’s throwing. Honestly, it’s cool to learn from.”
The brothers are similar, Griffiths said, in that they are as high-character as you could want from high school kids. The MLB draft could change his future, but Matt committed to Stanford as a freshman. Will has committed to play at Harvard.
Dad and Mom both worked on Wall Street, Will said. Dad is retired. Mom is teaching.
“Will is a little softer-spoken than Matt,” Griffiths said. “Will is probably a little more leader by example. They come from a great family, great values. With those two, there’s nothing to worry about.”
Will is planning to study economics at Harvard.
“As far as baseball, I liked their coaches the best, they were awesome,” he said. “When I was getting recruited, I’d get two calls a week. They were very interested. There was a spark between the coaches and me. I felt comfortable with them.
“Obviously, the academic part is huge for me. I value that.”
Will, who can hit the upper 80s with his fastball, essentially is Barlow’s No. 2 and has had three starts and one game in relief. Barlow’s early-season schedule was spread out. This allowed Matt to make the majority of the starts.
This also means Barlow is in the middle of eight games in nine days and nine in 11 days to close out the regular season Thursday.
“The problem is we had rainouts early on and everybody is having problems with buses and a shortage of drivers,” Griffiths said. “We had to push games back.
“We’ll be all right. We tell the kids all the time, you see all kinds of adversity, whether it’s bad weather or bad umpires. We’ve just got to roll with it.”
As draining as the schedule looks on paper, Griffiths said his team is set up for it because of deep pitching. Barlow is expected to start five or six different pitchers during the 11-game span. A couple of recent mercyrule victories have helped keep pitch counts down.
“I think playing all these games at this point is good for us to get us ready for the playoffs,” Will said. “It’s kind of fun. We have the depth for it. It’s a good test for more guys to see how we handle ourselves.”
Matt Scott’s regular-season starts are planned out, others are brought out on shorter rest. Matt is scheduled to pitch Monday against Pomperaug. Depending on how he may be used in relief, Will likely will start Tuesday or Wednesday.
“Right now I’m a little more wild than I’m used to,” Will said, “but I’m still ready and working hard. I’m sure I’ll get over it soon.”
Barlow has moved from Class L to Class M this year. As of Friday, Nonnewaug is unbeaten and Bacon Academy has lost once. Nonnewaug had the 17th-most votes in the GameTimeCT poll, while Bacon was 13th. Barlow, with two big brothers, has big designs.
“We’re excited and feeling good, but from the start we’ve told the kids not to look too far ahead,” Griffiths said.
“We’re ranked pretty high, and setting ourselves up for a pretty good run for both conference and states,” Will said. “Hopefully we are a 1-2 seed and win some games.”
The MLB draft, meanwhile, is July 17-19. Griffiths thinks Matt could be a first-rounder. And no, Will said, he doesn’t have the details on the draft party.
“It’s pretty calm right now,” Will said. “We’ve had a lot of home visits earlier on. But now with a lot of games and the college season ramping up, it’s been a little less hectic recently. It’s cool for the family. We get to go through it, too.
“Right now, Matt is so focused on getting ready for his next start that he hasn’t put a whole lot of thought into it. I’m sure my parents have. I just haven’t heard the news yet. I’m sure it will be a good time when his name gets called.”