Gig Harbor and Narrows pitcher Owen Wild dominating in summer, mulls college baseball decision

It’s been a wild summer, which is pretty fitting and appropriate for one of the area’s top pitchers.

Gig Harbor’s Owen Wild, the reigning South Sound Conference MVP finished his junior year with the Tides in commanding fashion, with a dominant 9-3 record and 1.75 ERA over 78 innings and recording 112 strikeouts. That form has remained the same with his summer league team, the Narrows Baseball Club.

Currently, Wild is pitching with a record of 5-3 and an ERA of 2.06 and WHIP of .828

However, the highlight of the summer has come in the form of two no-hitters, the first one was a 6-0 victory for Narrows over Prospect United and Wild struck out 10 in the winning effort. The second no-hitter against Merchant Elite, a team that Wild traditionally struggled with in the past was playing the first of a double header that would be followed up by a match up with the Narrows club.

During that first game, Wild had a chance to scout his opponents, which gave him a boost of confidence heading into his start. But that was just the beginning of an interesting lead up to the first pitch of the game.

Water damage to the bullpen mound had forced Wild to not take the mound in a bullpen session and had to throw a non-traditional pregame bullpen session by pitching next to the muddy mound. Then an injury to his starting catcher delayed the start even more and forced Wild to key in on what he needed to do to be successful.

“Our starting catcher had an arm injury or something so he couldn’t play,” Wild said. “We had to switch catchers while I was warming up. So while that is going on, I went in the dugout and sat down for about five minutes. I was just trying to get focused, clear my mind and getting ready to pitch. While that was going on, the other team is getting rowdy and catcalling trying to get the game started”

Merchant Elite may be regretting getting the game started so soon, as Wild pitched another 10-strikeout no-hitter, this time against Merchant Elite in a 4-0 victory.

Wild credits that game and his steely focus to a pregame routine he’s seen from other major league pitchers and that is called the ‘toilet behind the mound.’ Although it may sound graphic to some, it’s actually a perfectly sanitary pregame routine that has become vital to Wild’s success.

“Every time I step on the mound, I go through my eight warm-up pitches then step behind the mound, take my hat off and flush away all the negative thoughts and focus on the task at hand,” Wild said.

This past off-season, Wild added more velocity to his pitches and went from pitching around 81-82 miles per hour to hitting the 87 MPH mark consistently. The addition of a slider has also give Wild a chance to be more deceptive in his pitching style and not be too predictable with fastballs and change-ups.

“I spent the whole off-season lifting weights and getting stronger,” Wild said. “I was talking with my summer coaches, high school coaches and even some college coaches and the number one thing they told me is increase my velocity. College coaches don’t want guys who throw 81, they want guys to throw 91. The whole off-season, I’ve been working to increase my velocity and it’s starting to pay off.”

As Owen enters the back half of the summer before his senior season, he currently has his eyes on three schools: Seattle U, Gonzaga and Utah. The University of Utah has emerged as a late comer into the battle but Wild is expected to announce his collegiate destination sooner, rather than later.

For the longest time, Wild has tried to shake the stigma of lacking that velocity that coaches and baseball experts have come to champion and his focus as he narrows down the days till a commitment have been about focusing on the game and what he can do for his team.

“One of the things that’s been frustrating for me is this whole velocity argument that you hear all the time,” Wild said. Although I may be much younger than some of the other prospects because I’m 16, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have the chance to improve that velocity to compete at the Division-I level.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2019 at 7:00 AM.