WW-PS’ Ruta having solid year in A-ball
LAKEWOOD » Ben Ruta remembers sitting in dugout waiting for the start of his Cape Cod League game when the text messages filled with exclamation points began.
A minute or so later the phone rang and Ruta, a West Windsor-Plainsboro South product, knew for sure he had been selected in the 2016 MLB Draft.
That it turned out to be the Yankees, his favorite team, was the cherry on top.
“It’s a first-class organization all the way,” Ruta said prior to Single-A Charleston’s game at Lakewood on Sunday. “They really take care of the players. They preach a lot of good things like playing hard, playing the game right, respecting the game. I like that whole motto: The Yankee Way.”
Ruta played four seasons at Wagner College where he compiled a .333/.409/.436 with four homers, 88 RBIs and 21 steals in 146 career games. As a redshirt junior, he slashed .343/.406/.439 — numbers good enough to convince the Yankees to use their 30th-round pick on him.
In his first full season of pro ball, Ruta is beginning to demonstrate the consistency the Yankees wanted to see. The 23-year-old joined Charleston of the South Atlantic League in May after spending the first month of the season in Tampa for extended spring training and announced his arrival with a pair of hits, including a single on the first pitch he saw.
Since then he’s nailed down an everyday place in the Charleston outfield alongside highly-regarded prospects Blake Rutherford (No. 3) and Estevan Florial (No. 15).
Ruta has a .276/.326/.305 slash line with 13 RBIs and 11 steals in 51 games. He played a key part in Charleston’s 2-1 win on Sunday with a leadoff single in the ninth and then scored on Rutherford’s two-out opposite field homer to left.
“I feel like my approach has been pretty good all season,” he said. “I’m just trying to put good at-bats together and get on base, use my speed more. That’s kind of what I do.
“I want to get on base a lot and be able to steal, cause some havoc on the base paths and create runs for the team.”
Ruta is one of three West Windsor South graduates chasing the major league dream. His former teammates Paul Balestrieri and Matt McCann were both selected in last month’s draft.
Balestrieri, a righthanded pitcher out of Cornell, went in the 26th round to the Cardinals and McCann, a shortstop out of Wagner’s NEC rival Fairleigh Dickinson, was a 25th-round pick of the Angels.
Ruta said the goal for all three of them is the same.
“The only expectation is to make it to the big leagues,” he said. “Once you get into the system, you realize the pick number doesn’t really matter. It’s about work ethic, putting up good at-bats, being a good all around player with defense, offense, base running. I think the sky’s the limit.”
Ruta isn’t the only player on the Charleston roster with ties to Mercer County.
First baseman Brandon Wagner, a Princeton native, entered Sunday’s game with a .300/.391/.432 line to go along with six homers and 39 RBIs in 75 games.
He had been a scorching .447 (17-for-38) with four homers and 14 RBIs in his last 10.
Wagner attended Immaculata High in Somerville and was selected by the Yankees in the sixth round in 2015 out of Howard Junior College.
Charleston pitching coach Justin Pope spent five seasons in the Yankees’ organization as a player, including parts of four different years with the Thunder.