Baseball was in his blood. Doug was an intern with the Cincinnati Reds under former Dayton writer and Reds’ PR director, Jim Ferguson, a decade before Mike was born in 1990.
“Basketball is fun to play. It’s a lot more exciting,” Mike Hauschild said. “I was never that great at it. … Baseball is what I was best at. I’m doing something every play when I’m pitching that makes it fun. Fielders have to kind of wait.”
The 2008 Beavercreek grad became a Flyer on Tony Vittorio’s A-10 tournament championship team in 2012. Hauschild was 7-3, setting a school record with 120 1/3 innings pitched with the second-highest, single-season strikeout total (92) in program history.
Undrafted out of high school or after his third year of college, the year the most promising prospects are drafted, his senior season caught the attention of the Houston Astros, probably from the NCAA regional at College Station in Dayton’s first-ever tournament appearance. Houston selected Hauschild in the 33rd round, near the end of the draft, one of four Flyers who signed pro contracts..
“Mike was a starter on two A-10 championship teams. As a freshman he pitched our Sunday conference games and as a senior he pitched our Friday conference games,” Vittorio said. “Throughout Mike’s career at Dayton, he was very durable. As he progresses as a pitcher and became our No. 1 pitcher, he became a pro pitcher with the combination of his durability and his movement of his pitches. He could control the zone. I would not have put it past him to make it to the big leagues. He has always been a guy that you can count on.”
Still the odds of following fellow Flyers Jerry Blevins and Craig Stammen to the Major Leagues were long. That has changed.
“I definitely couldn’t envision myself in this position when I was drafted,” Hauschild said. “The last couple years I knew it could be a possibility if I kept grinding away.”
Hauschild finished the summer of 2012 at Greenville in the Appalachian rookie league. He continued the momentum built from his successful senior season.
The 6-foot-3, 210-pound right-hander made one start and 18 relief appearances with a sterling 1.78 ERA with a 2-2 record and three saves.
Hauschild was 6-1 at Quad Cities in the Midwest League, earning a promotion to High-A Lancaster. He advanced to Double-A Corpus Christi in 2014 where he finished with a 2-9 record and a 4.29 ERA.
Hauschild found himself in 2015. He was 5-1 with a 3.20 ERA in eight starts. The Astros promoted him to Triple-A Fresno and the MLB dream started to look realistic. Last season he was 9-10 with a 3.22 ERA in 24 starts, covering 139 2/3 innings. He threw strikes — 119 strikeouts and just 40 walks. He was among the Pacific Coast League leaders in those categories and was eighth in the league with a WHIP of 1.27. Hauschild was a PCL All Star .
Houston rolled the dice and left Hauschild off its 40-man roster. That put him in the pool of players eligible for MLB’s Rule V draft. Any player signed after the age of 19 that isn’t on his team’s 40-man roster is exposed. The claiming team pays $50,000 and has to keep the player on the big league 25-man roster or they have to be offered back to the original team for $25,000.
The Texas Rangers sensed a bargain and made the claim , adding Hauschild to the mix of several pitchers battling to earn a spot in the starting rotation.
Hauschild has settled in during his three weeks in Surprise, Ariz. with the Rangers.
“It’s exciting. I just want to prove I can help out the team,” he said. “I played against a lot of these guys. I know a decent amount of them. These guys have been great, very accepting.”
Hauschild’s next outing will be Tuesday, a scheduled three-inning stint against Colorado. The Rangers optioned three pitchers to Triple-A Round Rock on Monday and reassigned three more to minor league camp. The group he is competing with is dwindling.
It will be Hauschild’s third outing of the spring. He’s pitched 4 1/3 innings, allowing five hits, three runs (two earned) walked one and struck out three.
“I asked (pitching coach Doug Brocail) before my first outing if there was anything they wanted me to do,” he said. “He just told me to go out and try to win the spot. He wants to get me out there as much as possible.”
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