A.J. Alexy “looked like someone I should keep an eye on,” says local scout who signed Twin Valley pitcher

His pitching skills were raw and his control erratic but Rich DeLucia, then a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers, thought there might be something special about A.J. Alexy.

“He looked like someone I should keep an eye on,” DeLucia, a former big leaguer who now runs the DeLucia Baseball Academy in Reading, said, looking back some seven years.

Lots of people are keeping an eye on the 23-year-old Twin Valley graduate right now; he has taken Major League Baseball by storm.

The right-hander fired six shutout innings Monday, allowing just one hit, as the Texas Rangers defeated the Anaheim Angels 4-0. It was his second win in as many starts.

Over 11 big league innings he has allowed just two hits and hasn’t surrendered a run; that’s never been done in modern baseball history.

“The stuff was always there,” said DeLucia. “He’s never given up a whole lot of hits up. What’s impressing me right now is the walks; he’s not walking (as many) guys. If he keeps the hit total down, and the walk total down, that’s a recipe for a top-of-the-rotation starter.”

According to Stats Perform he’s the first pitcher in modern MLB history to allow one hit or less in each of his first two appearances (of five innings or more).

Alexy made his major league debut Aug. 30 vs. Colorado and went five innings, allowing one hit and three walks, with four strikeouts.

Monday, in a nationally televised game, he retired the final 13 batters he faced and struck out the side in the sixth, his final inning. He ended his 85-pitch stint by striking out All-Star slugger Shohei Ohtani.

“It’s really impressive, honestly,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said during a postgame press conference. “What he does between starts and how he talks about the game and you watch him pitch, I’ve been impressed.

“I thought today he was much better with his fastball (than the first time out). It doesn’t get hit. That’s one thing about his fastball, it’s got a lot of life and a lot of extension, a lot of vertical movement on it.

“It just doesn’t get squared up ever. Today, he threw a lot of strikes with it, but also used the slider and change-up when he needed to.”

“I had a lot more confidence going into this game,” Alexy said in a postgame press conference, as reported by MLB.com. “The first one’s always the one you get a bit anxious for, but I wanted to go into this game having a lot more confidence behind my delivery and my pitching.

“Just getting in the zone as much as possible. Having (catcher Jose Trevino) behind the plate putting the fingers down helps a lot.”

DeLucia, who scouted for the Dodgers from 2010-17, first saw Alexy as a Twin Valley sophomore, pitching in a showcase in Jupiter, Fla. He liked Alexy’s arm action and build and made a note to stay on him.

“He looked pretty interesting when I first saw him,” DeLucia said. “Seeing a kid that young, you have to project what he’s going to look like when he gets bigger and stronger.”

Alexy was about 160 pounds then, DeLucia said. He’s now 6-4 and 195 pounds and throwing much harder, touching 98 mph. He works in the 94-96 mph range.

“His timing was really good,” DeLucia said. “He got out front on all his pitches. He could spin the breaking ball. He was raw, and you could tell that one day he was going to throw harder.

“It happened his senior year in high school. His velocity started coming around, he was touching 93. Our group (of Dodgers scouts) really loved him.”

Alexy had some setbacks in recent seasons. An injury limited him to 19 1/3 innings in 2019 and last year he didn’t play in the Rangers system; he was not invited to the club’s alternate training site.

Before this season he had never pitched above Class A. He moved rapidly this season and went 3-1 with a 1.66 ERA over 16 minor league appearances, split between Class AA Frisco and Class AAA Round Rock. He struck out 76 over 65 innings.

Alexy was the Berks League Player of the Year as a senior in 2016 and a two-time All-Berks selection.

He was added to the Rangers’ 40-man roster following last season.

Alexy was an 11th-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2016, and was part of a three-player package the Dodgers sent to the Rangers for Yu Darvish on July 31, 2017; the Rangers also received Brendon Davis and Willie Calhoun.