Murphy reflects, eyes future

A look at USD baseball staff ace Chris Murphy’s big season and his road ahead

Anderson Haigler / Sports Editor / The USD Vista

Nearly every time Chris Murphy takes the mound, something interesting happens. Not necessarily in the sense of what’s taking place on the field, but in what’s happening around it. Almost each time the University of San Diego baseball team’s left-handed ace kicked his right leg skyward to begin his pitching motion this past season, 10-15 men wearing baseball caps and polo shirts sitting behind home plate raised radar guns and scribbled notes in their notepads. 

The pitcher: one of the Toreros’ and the West Coast Conference (WCC)’s best. The men: scouts from a handful of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams, evaluating Murphy’s potential to continue his career professionally. Their presence hasn’t been a coincidence. Through a team-high 60.1 innings pitched so far this season, Murphy has posted a 3.43 ERA, and a 1.31 WHIP, and has held opposing batters to an average of just .192 — a body of work that points to potential for a career in professional baseball. 

There’s more to the story than the statistics, however. As a hard-throwing lefty who has been able to rise to the occasion for his team when the lights are brightest and the pressure is highest, Murphy has set forth a season that has been integral to USD’s success and indicative of bigger things to come for the junior.

As for the scouts? Part of the reason he’s been able to be successful this season is his ability to tune out distractions, stay focused, and perhaps feed off of the high-pressure, Friday-night environment in which the majority of his starts have taken place.

“I just try to stay locked in,” Murphy said. “I know (the scouts) are there, I’m not gonna ignore it. But there’s a time where it can give me an adrenaline boost.”

But a year ago, Murphy wouldn’t have found himself in the same situation on the mound, leading his team in the first game of a WCC series. As a sophomore, the lefty registered solid, if unimpressive numbers: a 4.20 ERA and a .239 batting average against. Good numbers? Yes. But good enough to establish himself as a bona-fide MLB draft prospect? Probably not. Perhaps with this in mind, Murphy shipped off to play summer ball on the East Coast last offseason, an experience he said was invaluable to his development as a pitcher, as well as his confidence on the mound.

“I think it all started in summer ball,” Murphy said. “I really wanted to mature, and facing better hitters like that definitely gave me a confidence boost heading into season. That (summer ball) experience really led me into the fall, helped me gain confidence on the mound, really just not being afraid of anybody who steps up there.”

And when the next season began several months later, USD baseball head coach Rich Hill identified him as being one of the leaders of the Toreros’ pitching staff. 

“I think Chris Murphy has earned that distinction right away early in the season,” Hill said in mid-February.

Murphy has certainly lived up to that aforementioned distinction, and has handled the pressure of being USD’s go-to starter well. 

“Definitely something I’ve been working on since I was a kid was just — it’s a game, you get to have fun,” Murphy said. “I don’t need to stress about a runner on third base with nobody out. It happens, if a guy scores, a guy scores, but of course I’m trying not to let him score. I don’t sweat that situation, I’m not afraid of anybody up there in the box. I think I have good enough defense behind me that will get guys out and minimize every inning.” 

But if you ask first-year pitching coach Matthew Florer what has impressed him the most about the 20-year-old pitcher this past season, it wouldn’t be any specific performance or mechanical adjustment.

“I think I’ve seen a lot of maturity, which is natural,” Florer said. “You’re talking about a stud individual who has progressed over a three-year career. But I think a lot of his success has come down to what he’s done even away from the diamond — what he’s done with his body, what he’s done more importantly with his mind. As crazy as it might be, it’s not necessarily a mechanical adjustment or fine-tuning. But more of just a mental edge of knowing who you are.”

As the pitching coach at another WCC school in Loyola Marymount University prior to arriving at USD, Florer had the chance to see Murphy pitch from the other side of things, as an opponent, rather than one of his own players. Florer was impressed with what he saw in Murphy’s early outings.

“It’s not like I had never seen Chris Murphy before,” Florer said. “I had gone against him the two previous seasons. I even brought this up to Chris — even his freshman year when there were very talented individuals around him on that weekend staff — I remember walking away from that series and thinking that this guy might be the best arm of those three starters when it’s all said and done.” 

Now two years removed from his first encounter with Murphy, Florer preached the value that his staff ace’s consistency has brought to his current team. 

“Anytime you are rewarded with the opportunity of being called that ‘Friday-night guy,’ — that’s something that he’s been working for over the last couple of seasons — you gain confidence in that, you gain comfortability in knowing that Friday in and Friday out, you’re going to be the individual that gets the baseball. Whether it’s through the success, or through the ebbs and flows of the season, at least you know that you have a rock and a foundation like somebody like Chris Murphy once a week.”

The same way Florer saw a bright future for Murphy as a college pitcher years ago, MLB scouts have seen a path for him as a professional as they have observed him this season. But as a junior with one more year of college eligibility remaining, Murphy has the option to return to USD for his senior season. Whether he elects to accept a near-certain MLB deal in the draft this June like recent Torero pitching draftees Paul Richan and Nick Sprengel before him, or bet on himself and finish things out at USD before the following year’s draft remains to be seen, and Murphy was vague about his plans for baseball beyond this season. 

“(The MLB Draft is) in the back of my head, I know it’s there, it has been for a little while,” Murphy said. “It’s not something that I’m focusing on. I know that what I do out here is gonna help me in the next month. It’s on the back burner, I’m not totally sure what I’m gonna do yet. It’s definitely a decision I’m gonna have to make come June.”

Referencing previous conversations he had with Murphy, Florer provided a bit more detail regarding his pitcher’s upcoming decision, emphasizing that Murphy will be hoping to land with an organization that is the best fit for him.

“It’s just more of a matter of when his name is called,” Florer said of the potential of Murphy getting drafted. “I was actually talking to him recently about that, and it just comes down to the organizational need. And what I mean by that is that there’s certain organizations that are gonna value him higher than others. He’s definitely gonna be a name that’s called early, it’s just gonna come down to which organization fights for him the most.” 

One thing that Murphy is specific about, however, is his ultimate goal in baseball, stating that his aspiration is “100 percent” to pitch in the big leagues.

“I’m pretty confident in myself, I know what drives me on the mound, I know my work ethic is pretty hard to beat,” Murphy said. “I know that I’ve played a lot of hard baseball here at USD that’s really helped prepare me and a lot of guys that have come through here, so there’s no doubt in my mind (that I can compete professionally).”

Regardless of when or in which manner Murphy finishes his time at USD, he will take away countless memorable moments from his now three-year career as a Torero. Amidst talk of him moving on from college to the professional level, Murphy mentioned his first collegiate start in a game against UCLA as being the most unforgettable of his career so far.

“There’s a lot of games along the line that I’m never gonna forget here,” Murphy said.

“I still remember my first start at UCLA, that was one of the big ones. My first start, my hometown, (UCLA) was the school I always wanted to go to. It was just kinda cool to say, ‘Hey, this is what you passed up on.’ I kinda gave it what I had for six innings, one run. I probably won’t forget a single pitch from that game.”

If he is to leave after this season, Murphy stated that he would miss his teammates the most.

“Being in the dugout is definitely a fun time,” Murphy said. “The clubhouse, hanging out, telling stories, just being with all these guys, all the crazy antics.”

Murphy and the Toreros take on the University of the Pacific starting this Friday at 6 p.m. at Fowler Park in the first contest of a three-game series. Admission is free for all USD students.