Jon Kennedy,
Australian left-hander has stuff to match his 6-foot-8 frame
a 6-foot-8 left-hander from Australia, has been a valued member of the Fire Frogs’ bullpen.
When Jon Kennedy was completing his studies in neuroscience at a university in his native Melbourne, Australia, he signed his first professional baseball contract.
That precious signature meant not only moving to the other side of the world and reidea,’’ calibrating the body’s clock to the 14-hour time difference. Kennedy never had stepped foot in the United States, so as his career began in the Deep South, words understandably eluded him.
Those thick southern accents can be tricky.
“I know they’re talking words to me and I know they’re saying English, but I’ve just got no Kennedy said.
As someone who used to study the brain, Kennedy — a 6-foot-8 left-handed reliever for the Class A Florida Fire Frogs in Kissimmee — figured things out.
Opposing hitters haven’t been so fortunate.
Kennedy, 23, is off to a strong start in his third minor-league season, allowing two runs (one earned) in 19 innings for a 0.47 ERA. In eight appearances with Florida and one with Class AAA Gwinnett, he has surrendered only 11 hits while striking out 23 and walking six as the Fire Frogs began a seven-game road trip Monday night against the St. Lucie Mets.
“I like how he attacks hitters,’’ Fire Frogs pitching coach Mike
Maroth said. “He’s got a very deceptive delivery, and he throws nothing straight. There’s a lot of good qualities there.’’
Kennedy was in his final semester at the Swinburne University of Technology when a Baltimore Orioles scout asked him to try out. The Orioles did not offer a contract, but the scout was impressed enough with Kennedy’s throwing session that he told a peer with the Atlanta Braves about it.
At the time, the Braves had a scout from Australia, Phil Dale. He was asked whether he had heard of Kennedy.
“He’s my nephew,’’ said Dale, a former Cincinnati Reds minor-leaguer.
“Then why haven’t we signed him?’’ came the reply. The Braves soon did. “It was a very roundabout way to get signed,’’ Kennedy said.
Kennedy’s introduction to pro baseball came with the Rome Braves, a South Atlantic League team based about 70 miles northwest of Atlanta.
Kennedy, who was on Australia’s 2017 World Baseball Classic team, is 7-3 with a 2.53 ERA and five saves in 67 career minor-league appearances.
“If you didn’t know his history, you’d have thought he had been playing for such a long time,’’ said Dan Meyer, the pitching coach at Rome. “He looks comfortable out there.’’
Not that adjustments weren’t required.
Because Kennedy played about once a week in Australia, the minorleague workload was a little too fast and furious at first. He battled shoulder issues earlier in his career as his body responded to pitching more regularly.
And that was just on the field.
Off it, Kennedy not only dealt with foreign accents — for their part, Georgians often mistook him for British — but it also took him about a month to feel comfortable driving on the right side of the road. Restaurants could be an adventure as well, because tipping is not common in Australia.
“He blows our mind every day,’’ Fire Frogs catcher Tanner Murphy said. “He brings in these most random facts about Australia you never heard of, whether it be about animals over there, what they eat.
“A fun fact that he just told us the other day is that they don’t really do the fast food. Everything’s momand-pop shops over there.’’
Just like him, Kennedy’s mom and pop are pretty tall. At 6 feet 1, his mother is an inch taller than his father.
“[Height] was my one thing that I always stood out in school for,’’ Kennedy said. Now it’s his pitching. Kennedy can work on comprehending those pesky accents on the side.