Eugene starting pitcher Hunter Dryden had a lot of folks out to the game last week at Avista Stadium for his Spokane homecoming. They cheered so loudly when he struck out one of the hometown Indians batters that it drew looks from others in the crowd.
“I didn’t get an official tally,” the Deer Park High School and Whitworth University alum said. “But I think it ended up being just over 60 people, which is incredible that everybody came in and did that. That was , like , insane for them to all do that, and I’m very appreciative.”
After the game, in which Dryden tossed six innings of one-run ball in an eventual 13-1 win for the Emeralds, all his visitors came down onto the field to share the moment with the 24-year-old right-hander.
“I got to give them all hugs and talked to them for a while,” he said. “My little cousins wanted autographs. And then there’s a few people who had left before the game ended, so I got some texts from them and talked to them and, you know, thanked them for coming.”
Dryden is in the midst of his second season of professional baseball in the San Francisco Giants organization. The Giants drafted him in the 17th round of the 2024 MLB draft after his four-year career at Whitworth.
He was happy and appreciative to see everyone last Tuesday but still had a job to do and tried not to put too much pressure on himself to have a good game.
“My wife asked me (about the pressure), and I mean, maybe there was a little, you know,” Dryden said. “You obviously don’t want to play bad in front of a bunch of people. But at the same time, I just had to treat it as if they weren’t here, you know, as if everything was the same.”
Dryden apologized to some of his family who were trying to wave at him and get his attention during the game.
“I tried to treat it like a regular game, but it was hard to when they were cheering as hard as (they) were,” he said.
The self-proclaimed “Spokane kid” had Tuesday’s date circled on his calendar since he was assigned to Eugene at the start of the season. He knew he’d get a chance to pitch professionally in a stadium where he spent so much time as a kid and high schooler.
“It’s crazy that it got all the way to August before we came here. That’s just how the scheduling worked out this year,” he said. “But basically, since I found out I was coming (to Eugene), I was like, ‘When are we going to Spokane?’ I told my buddies, ‘I can’t wait for us all to go to Spokane.’ So yeah, I tried to treat it like a normal one, but it definitely was a different one in that regard.”
Dryden recounted attending Indians games as a kid, usually sitting out in the bleachers – or running around in the “Kids Zone” or at the speed pitch. He even played here with Deer Park in a district playoff game his junior year.
“Walking out here, the first thing I did when we got here on Monday after traveling, I walked out on the field, and it was just surreal,” he said. “Just to be in the dugout of the field that I’ve grown up coming to and watching games at all the time.
“It’s kind of unexplainable. Like during the game, after the game, all of it. When I went out to stretch before the game, you know, I’m out there stretching, and I’m like, ‘Am I really stretching at this field right now?’ ”
Dryden’s path to the pros hasn’t always been a straight line. A member of the class of 2020, he missed his senior baseball season due to the pandemic. He spent that time playing games in Idaho where the rules were less restrictive, and was fortunate that Whitworth honored its offer to him based upon his junior season.
“Luckily, I was committed to Whitworth prior to everything shutting down. Who knows what would have happened if that weren’t the case?” Dryden said. “I played on a Spokane travel team and ended up talking to some of my first colleges during that summer and had a couple opportunities but ended up going with Whitworth, and I was so happy that I did. I really, really enjoyed my time at Whitworth.”
He said it’s “hard to say” how much the COVID year set back his development as a player, but relished being able to play both ways at Whitworth – and stay close to home for his college experience.
“I tried doing as much as I could throughout that time,” he said. “I feel like it really affected everybody who couldn’t play in games, and that’s really what helps you out the most. Coming out of COVID, that first year at Whitworth, getting at-bats was incredibly important to kind of just get back in the flow of baseball games, like as crazy as that sounds.”
During his senior year, Dryden – who is listed at 5-foot-9, 183 pounds – switched to pitching full time in an effort to get drafted.
There wasn’t a big conversation about it, but he went from playing shortstop in the first two games of a series and pitching in the third, to pitching the series opener only.
“I think the coaching staff was looking out for me and thought, you know, maybe, ‘Take him out of the lineup on the hitting side and make sure that he’s ready to go on the pitching side every week,’ ” he said. “Being able to go to that Game 1 start really helped to improve my pitching and my readiness for the weekend.”
As a shorter pitcher, Dryden must take advantage of technique more than overpowering batters.
“Being smaller, if I wanted to throw hard I had to make everything work to its fullest of capability,” he said. “I kind of had to figure out how to make my body do that. As I got taller a little bit, as I got stronger, then the velocity ended up coming along with it, and my mechanics were in a spot where I allowed that to happen.”
Dryden went 5-3 his senior year at Whitworth with a 2.10 ERA and 71 strikeouts over 12 starts and 682/3 innings. That led to a call from the Giants on draft day.
“I found out when everybody else did, just when my name came across the screen,” he said. “I talked with the Giants after I saw that, and I was surrounded by family, and was just an unbelievable feeling. It’s something you dream about – every little kid’s dream.”
Dryden started 21 games for Low-A Fresno last year, going 5-3 with a 2.90 ERA, and so far this year he’s pitched in 20 games with 16 starts for High-A Eugene with a 4.98 ERA.
“As you climb, you’re gonna see better competition,” he said. “So you have to figure out a way to not only beat talent but beat a better approach, and it’s definitely a part of the game that takes time to learn. It’s been really fun to experience that the last couple of years. There’s a solid difference between Low-A baseball and High-A baseball and it takes some adjustments.”
Part of that adjustment is “learning to be a pro” and the day-to-day grind of professional baseball. But Dryden still doesn’t see it as “a job.”
“I don’t know if I could call it a job. It doesn’t feel like a job still. So I mean, I guess that’s a win. If you don’t feel like you’re working, then that’s a perfect job, I guess. But no, I mean, having baseball as my job is the most fun I could ever have.”
Even if that means facing big leaguer Cal Raleigh while he was on a rehab assignment for the Everett AquaSox.
“That was kind of a crazy experience,” Dryden said.
“Me growing up in Washington, being a Mariners fan all my life growing up, watching them all the time, and then him being all of my buddies’ favorite player? You know, it was crazy to see that I was going to be facing him.”
Raleigh went 1-for-3 against Dryden, with an infield single and a strikeout.
“I kind of kept it level-headed (after the strikeout) – until I got in the dugout, of course. Then all my buddies were poking fun at me for it and everything like that. I mean, that’s what buddies are and teammates are for. But then I had to crack a smile after that for sure.”