Washington Nationals: Our Interview With Pitcher Greg Ross
By Ricky Keeler
This week, I got the chance to talk to Washington Nationals minor league pitcher Greg Ross. Check out our interview below
When you talked about pitchers at the Washington Nationals double-A affiliate (the Harrisburg Senators) last season, a lot of the conversation would be about Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez. As a team, the Senators’ 3.75 ERA was the third lowest of any team in the Eastern League.
Giolito and Lopez may have gotten most of the hype while they were at Harrisburg, but one pitcher who had a strong season was right-hander Greg Ross. With high-A Potomac and Harrisburg, Ross went 7-3 with a 1.06 ERA in 20 games (12 starts).
2016 was Ross’s first season in the Washington Nationals organization after spending the first five seasons of his professional career with the Atlanta Braves. Atlanta drafted him in the 18th round of the 2011 MLB Draft out of Frostburg State University. While at Frostburg State, Ross was 11-2 with a save and a 1.49 ERA in 15 games in 2011.
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Ross had a 1.45 ERA in ten games at high-A Potomac (2-2 record) before being promoted to Harrisburg. In his first four starts with the Senators, the 27-year-old right-hander threw 28 shutout innings and gave up 15 combined hits.
Even though Ross’s season was cut short because of injury, he still had a productive season. This fall, he was playing in the Venezuelan Winter League for Tiburones de La Guaira. The manager of that team was former Marlins and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen.
Down in Venezuela, Ross went 3-3 with a 3.38 ERA in ten outings. Out of those ten starts, he gave up three runs or fewer in nine of those games despite not striking out more than four batters in any outing. While Ross doesn’t strike many hitters out, he describes himself as a “competitor” and is able to get outs by pitching to contact.
This week, I had the privilege to talk with Ross about his draft day experience, his goals for the upcoming season, how he would describe Guillen in one word as a manager, his favorite pitchers to watch, and he takes us back to his time at Frostburg State.
It is an interview you will not want to miss. We at District On Deck thank him for taking the time to do this interview with us.
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We wish him nothing but the best as he prepares for the upcoming 2017 season.