Generating Heat, and Quite a Buzz

Ryan Tucker’s 92-mph fastball zooms toward home plate with the suddenness of a lightning bolt.

Sometimes it’s pure luck to make contact against Tucker, a 16-year-old junior at Temple City who has thrown two no-hitters this season.

When coaches stress the importance of hand-eye coordination to hitting a baseball, Tucker’s fastball serves as a reminder as to the difficulty of the task.

Tucker made it through all of March and the first 29 days of April giving up only one earned run. Then last Friday, against a La Canada team he had held hitless in the previous game, he suffered his worst outing of the season.

He gave up two earned runs -- a two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh to Erik Bell that sent the game into extra innings. Temple City won, 4-3, in 10 innings, but Tucker still left the field feeling a little perturbed.

He walked four batters, hit three others and struck out only four in nine innings, despite his fastball’s being clocked as high as 94 mph.

Watching him struggle with his control because of an obvious dislike for the La Canada mound offered insight into Tucker’s mental toughness. He never stopped competing. He also discovered he could be beaten when he doesn’t pitch his best.

“I can’t take what I have for granted,” he said. “It’s not like everyone is going to lay down. It’s a learning experience. I just feel right now, no one can beat me. But I found out it can happen.”

Disappointed, frustrated, even confused by his performance, Tucker immediately sat through a mini-interrogation by a sportswriter probing to see how he would respond to adversity.

“I don’t know if I would call it struggling,” he said. “I wasn’t on top of my game.”

Expectations have soared for Tucker, a 6-foot-2, 195-pound right-hander who’s 8-0 with 86 strikeouts in 58 2/3 innings.

Friends have been posting green Ks on the fence after each of his strikeouts. A man who identified himself as an agent was at the La Canada game pointing a radar gun after every pitch.

Tucker is more than a year away from becoming eligible for the June amateur draft, but the buzz is already building that he could be a top prospect for 2005.

“His work ethic is so good, it’s unbelievable,” Coach Barry Bacon said. “He’s built up so much flexibility and arm strength. He’s the smartest player on the team. He’s a baseball junkie but also a good student.”

Tucker has been taking pitching lessons since he was 8. He first reached the magical 90-mph mark in the summer of his sophomore year.

“It was good because you look at the pros and they’re all throwing in the 90s,” he said. “I never thought I’d be throwing that hard.”

As La Canada proved, 92-mph fastballs don’t make a pitcher invincible. But combine velocity with an effective curveball and changeup, and the hits come few and far between.

Tucker views himself as a pitcher, not a thrower. And he thinks of himself as a student of the game.

“I can say, truthfully and honestly, I work as hard as anyone,” he said. “I do my running. I do my arm exercises. I’m not going to quit learning. I don’t think you can learn enough.”

Baseball is the only sport he has played.

“I like to be in control,” he said. “I want the ball in my hands.”

By this time next season, the pro scouts figure to know everything about Tucker, from what kind of toothpaste he uses to his favorite song.

He looks forward to the scrutiny given to high draft picks.

“I want to think in a year, people will be watching me,” he said. “I can deal with it. I’ve lived for it.”

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Calabasas is close to naming two-time Cy Young Award winner Bret Saberhagen as its baseball coach for next season.

Current coach Rick Nathanson has announced his retirement and recommended Saberhagen for the job. Saberhagen, the school’s pitching coach, has lots of plans to improve the program once final approval is given to his selection.

He figures to make a six-year commitment to the program because he has a 12-year-old son expected to enroll at Calabasas in the coming years.

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Senior guard Vince Oliver of Los Angeles Loyola has committed to UC Irvine.

Carson has hired Jason Sanders, who has coached at Hollywood and Beverly Hills, as its boys’ basketball coach.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com