Joel McGrath made his return to the game he loves this year, after an injury riddled start to college baseball for the Kindersley native. His return to baseball has been an abrupt one thanks to the home of the Colby Community College Trojans being a certified launching pad for home runs.

The Trojans as a team have hit 66 home runs in 30 games this season, as part of their 233 runs so far. Still these offensive numbers have not been enough to push the Trojans over .500 on the season as they sit with a 13-17 record.

Back to McGrath who has pitched 10 innings this season. He managed to get the win in 1 of 2 games he started, and has appeared in 7 games total. The stats are not pretty from there with 18 hits against, 22 earned runs, and 21 walks to go along with 13 strikeouts. He shouldn’t feel pressure to immediately lower his 19.80 ERA this season, as a majority of Colby’s pitchers have double-digit ERA’s.

Still he has some work to do if he wants to refine his game, and maybe earn some extra innings to finish the rest of the season.

McGraths’s powerful nature sees him gravitate towards being more of a strikeout pitcher, but his command has just not been consistent enough to earn him that label.

His 13 strikeouts in just 10 innings does hint at some promise. His stuff seems hard to consistently hit, but batters have not had a problem squaring the freshman up in select situations.

McGrath has given up 5 home runs himself on the season, but he knew what he was getting into when he first decided to take the mound in Kansas.