Cal freshman among national pitching leaders

And, the slender 6-foot-3 left-hander is certainly in the running for National Freshman Pitcher of the Year. His eight wins actually ties him with six other hurlers for tops in the nation, among whom Jones is the only freshman.

"His poise and his demeanor and just the way he carries himself has been outstanding,” Cal manager David Esquer said. "We’ve put him out there, whether it’s against (powerhouses) Arkansas or Rice, and he’s handled all those situations well. So, as good as we thought he was, he’s exceeded all our expectations.”

Cal’s regular weekend rotation is steeped in relative youth. Friday starter Erik Johnson and Sunday starter Dixon Anderson are both sophomores. Swing starter Chris Petrini is a fifth-year senior.

That leaves Jones as the youngster of the rotation. A seventh-round draft pick by the White Sox last year out of Oakdale High, he bypassed the professional plunge after attending Cal’s Summer Bridge Program, a two-week scholastic visitation that allows potential students to experience life on the college campus. Once he committed to Cal, Jones said he felt he had to prove himself as a first-year pitcher.         

"Yeah, a lot of people think because you’re young you can’t really do what the other guys can,” Jones said. "I’m completely against that. If you have it, you have it. And you’re going to do well if you’re going to do well.”

Pitching against Tim Lincecum’s alma mater Washington on Saturday – Cal took two-of-three games this weekend, and has now won 10 of its last 11 – Jones locked into a battle of a pitching matchup with Huskies right-hander Andrew Kittredge. Trailing until the bottom of the seventh, Jones worked out of trouble all day long. Five times, the Huskies batter leading off an inning reached base. And, five times the Huskies stranded runners at third base.

All tolled, Jones threw 123 pitches, exiting in the ninth inning when Washington No. 9 hitter David Bentrott reached on a one-out double.

"A hundred-plus pitches for Jones, it’s not anything unusual,” Cal catcher Chadd Krist said. "He’s always up in the low hundreds. He’s just got a rubber arm.”

Krist turned in the play of the game, perhaps the play of the year for the Bears, to keep Jones’s win in tact. With Bentrott on second, Cal closer Matt Flemer surrendered a one-out single to left to Brad Boyer, the first batter he faced. With Bentrott motoring home, Cal left fielder Danny Oh threw a worm-burner up the third-base line, which Krist tracked down, gathered, and dove back to the plate just in time to tag Bentrott and preserve the 3-2 lead.

Rubber arm stronger late

According to Krist, getting stronger late in the game is par for the course with Jones.

"He’s better in the later innings because he’s more established and he knows how to work hitters,” Krist said. "And he’s just really smart…. (When Jones throws) it’s almost a day off for me behind the plate.”

Jones labored in the middle innings, though. Especially in the fifth, when he loaded the bases with two outs. Facing Washington cleanup hitter Pierce Rankin, Jones fell behind in the count 2-0, then came back with two consecutive strikes on a fastball-curveball sequence. He then ran the count full, only to induce a weak popup to second base.

"I don’t like it when he does this, but I feel like he kind of toys with the hitter sometimes,” Krist said. "Almost like, if he goes down 2-0 early in the count, I have no doubt he’s going to come back and throw strikes every single time.”

The reason Jones gets stronger as he goes deeper into games is maybe because he prefers simply competing once he sets foot on the mound, as opposed to doing a lot of advanced scouting.

Growing into an ace

As a freshman at Oakdale High, Jones got thrown right into the fire. After spending the 2006 regular season on the junior-varsity squad, he got called up to take the ball for a crucial playoff game when Oakdale ace Mitch McIntyre strained a hamstring. Jones took the loss as Oakdale fell 3-2, but the freshman yielded just one earned run.

Whether it’s a big postseason game, or a season matchup against a ranked team like Arkansas, Jones approaches each game with the same stoic mentality.

"I don’t really have nerves, to be honest,” Jones said. "I just go out there and pitch the game…. No reason to be (nervous). It’s a privilege to be out here. So I don’t really see any nerves or stress.”

It’s this demeanor that impressed Petrini, the veteran lefty of the Bears pitching staff, since the first day Jones walked onto Evans Diamond.

"I knew he was going to be pretty good,” Petrini said. "So, my whole game plan going in was just to get his mental approach as good as it could get, and it didn’t take any work at all. He came in primed and ready to go mentally and physically. He throws the ball well, understands what he has to do, and on top of it is just a great kid.”

Jones credits his first-and-foremost idol as being Lincecum. He has more in common with the Giants phenom than just his slender build. Jones also utilizes the abbreviated windup that Lincecum has made famous among Bay Area baseball fans. And, like Lincecum, Jones credits his father as having played an instrumental role in teaching him the ins-and-outs of being a pitcher. And Jones’s parents Stan and Rosemary are likewise a strong support system, attending every home game he pitches.

"They didn’t really tell me where to go, or what they wanted me to do,” Jones said. "They just said it was my choice, and that was probably the biggest part that really helped me, is that it was my choice the whole way. They were just there to support.”

Now, Jones is part of a starting rotation that should be intact through the 2011 season, for a Cal team currently ranked Top 20 in the nation, and a game out of first place in the Pac-10.