MacDonald bearing down in Jays’ system

Mike MacDonald certainly isn’t the first Mainer to relocate to Florida’s Gulf Coast region, but unlike many of his fellow Pine Tree State natives, he’s not even thinking about retirement.

Well, unless you’re talking about retiring batters…

The 6-foot-1, 185-pound righthander has been doing a lot of that in this, his second full season of minor league baseball. MacDonald has compiled a 5-1 record with a 3.91 ERA in nine starts this season for Dunedin, the Toronto Blue Jays’ top Class A team.

The 23-year-old son of Paul and Betsy MacDonald has made steady progress through the Jays farm system since he was selected by Toronto with the 16th pick in the 15th round (447th overall) of the 2004 amateur draft. He was ranked the franchise’s 43rd-best prospect overall by Bluejaysinsider.com this preseason.

The Camden native, who has allowed 50 hits and 19 walks while notching 35 strikeouts in 50 2/3 innings this season, has yielded just one home run this year.

“I’m a sinker-slider guy, so I try and get a lot of ground balls,” MacDonald said. “I’ve been concentrating on throwing strikes, getting ahead of hitters, and letting my fielders do a lot of the work.”

Even before his solid start, MacDonald earned plenty of praise from Blue Jays fan Web sites Bluejaysinsider.com, which called him “a mature and polished pitcher,” and insidethedome.com, which referred to him as “the steal of the draft from the Jays standpoint.”

Insidethedome.com added this about the former Camden-Rockport High School star athlete: “MacDonald pitched spectacular as he earned a ticket from Auburn to Charleston, and has set up his future to be a bright one. MacDonald exemplified tremendous control as a professional which shows he is a mature and polished pitcher. There is no reason why he should not begin the 2005 season at Dunedin, and he is a pitcher we are extremely high on as we will monitor him closely in 2005.”

Batter’s Box Interactive Magazine and Web site gave MacDonald four of its six minor league pitching awards for last season after he yielded an average of 0.65 hits and 5.8 strikes per inning, finished with a 1.55 ERA, a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) ratio of 0.78, and strikeouts/walks ratio of 5.0 (30/6) in 46 1/3 innings with low Single A Auburn (N.Y.). He threw 32 2/3 innings for Charleston (S.C.) en route to a 1.93 ERA with 23 K’s and nine walks.

The former University of Maine standout starter, who was named the America East conference pitcher of the year in 2002, isn’t letting that kind of praise go to his head, especially since he’s not hearing much of it from the people who really count: organization coaches and scouts.

“They don’t really say much,” he said. “It’s so early to tell. We have 140 games and I’ll have good days and bad days, so you really can’t let yourself get too high or low.”

Rather than reading his press clippings, MacDonald prefers to bone up on the opposition.

“I’m working on reading hitters’ swings when I’m pitching or while charting games,” he explained. “I’m getting better at it. The more you learn, the better off you are.”

MacDonald has a great brain to pick in Dunedin pitching coach Rick Langford, a former pitching star for Billy Martin’s Oakland Athletics in the early 1980s. Langford won 73 games in an 11-year big league career.

A big part of MacDonald’s on-the-job training is learning not to try and do too much.

“Exactly. As a younger guy, you might rely too much on a fastball and try to strike everyone out,” he said. “I think I have more maturity. As much as I’d like to think I was grown up when I got here, you’re never done learning and there’s always things you can learn.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.com