Schulfer closes first pro season with League Title
Portage County Gazette
By John Kemmeter
Plover native and former Stevens Point Area Senior High School (SPASH) standout Austin Schulfer wrapped up his first season of professional baseball by helping the Elizabethton Twins win the Appalachian League Title.
A 19th-round draft pick by the Minnesota Twins in June, Schulfer earned the start on the mound in Game 1 of the Appalachian League Finals and got the win for Elizabethton, which followed with a 2-1 win over the Princeton Rays in Game 2 Sept. 5 to claim its second consecutive Appalachian League Title.
“It was pretty cool,” said Schulfer. “Obviously you’re there to win, as well as perform for yourself.
“But it’s just really special when a bunch of different people, most of us had no idea who anybody else was before, comes together and wins something,” he said.
Selected by the Twins out of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), Schulfer went 1-0 with a 3.71 ERA through his first three appearances for Elizabethton (Tenn.) in July, before he put together 17 and 1/3 innings without allowing an earned run to lower his ERA to 1.85 by Aug. 18.
Schulfer followed with his final start of the regular season against the Bristol Pirates Aug. 24, where he struck out four, walked three and didn’t allow an earned run on six hits in five innings to earn the win in a 7-3 victory.
With the Appalachian League West Division already clinched for Elizabethton, Schulfer made one more appearance before the postseason, as he came out of the bullpen in the regular-season finale Aug. 29 and struck out two of the three batters he faced in a scoreless inning.
That extended Schulfer’s streak to 23 and 1/3 consecutive innings without giving up an earned run, and since playoff stats don’t count, he finished his first season of professional baseball with a 3-0 record and 1.58 ERA, with 34 strikeouts, 15 walks, 33 hits and only one home run allowed in 40 innings of work.
“I definitely got into a groove a little bit,” said Schulfer. “And just some of the stuff that I’ve been working on, just mixing pitches more and just being more confident in myself and trusting my stuff, played a role in that.
“It’s obviously good to succeed right away and prove yourself, so I kind of ran with that confidence after I settled in a little bit,” he said. “And I just went every day, did what I had to do, working on stuff, and it just translated into the game every week.”
Elizabethton went on to defeat the Kingsport Mets 2-1 in the best-of-three League Semifinal Series to advance to the best-of-three Appalachian League Championship Series against the Princeton Rays.
There, Schulfer got the start in Game 1 at Princeton Sept. 4 and struck out six and walked none over seven innings of work, as he allowed four earned runs on eight hits to earn the win on the mound in a 7-4 victory.
“There’s always some nerves and butterflies when you’re pitching in big games, but I actually had my best stuff that I’ve had in a while,” said Schulfer. “I gave up some runs and I gave up a home run on good pitches, and that’s baseball.
“I live for that kind of stuff, the games where it means a little bit more and the adrenaline’s running a little bit more, that makes baseball what it is,” he said. “It makes it fun and it makes it exciting, and it was really cool to be a part of that.”
Elizabethton was home the next day for Game 2, where it scored one run in the bottom of the fourth inning to tie the game at 1-1, and then had a one-out RBI double in the bottom of the eighth to take a 2-1 lead, before it held on in the top of the ninth to claim the Appalachian League Title with a 2-1 win.
“It was a really close game,” said Schulfer. “I haven’t really won too much team-wise; we always got close at Milwaukee but just could never get the job done, and at SPASH we lost three state games in a row to Sun Prairie.
“The last time I’d really won something was in 2014, we won the State Legion Title (on Plover), so it was pretty surreal,” he said. “And it was a really, really cool experience.”
Since postseason stats, as well as innings where unearned runs were scored don’t count toward scoreless streaks, Schulfer will officially carry a scoreless innings streak of 20 into next season, where he is expected to compete for one of the Twins’ Single A affiliates in either Cedar Rapids, Iowa, or Advanced A in Fort Myers, Fla.
“I’m hoping to obviously push up the ranks as high as I can get,” said Schulfer. “I trust the Twins organization will do what they think is best for my career and my future, so as long as I just keep my head down and keep playing, hopefully I end up in the highest level I can be at.”
After the League Championship, Schulfer joined his girlfriend Elizabeth in Jacksonville, Fla., where he will spend the off-season, and have plenty to look back on, as he moves forward from his first season as a professional.
“It’s a different game,” said Schulfer. “Everybody’s good, and everybody’s there for a reason.
“And I think that being able to learn from them and learn from professional coaches, and just having those kind of experiences and winning a championship my first year, is something that I’ll always remember,” he said. “But other than that, it was a feel-good moment for yourself, knowing that you’re playing professional baseball, and that everything is kind of coming together.”