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Sports

Baseball: Ross Adjusts to Life on the Farm

The former CCBC Essex pitcher is having a strong start with the Atlanta Braves' affiliate team in the rookie league.

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A boy about 10 years old, with a baseball glove on his left hand, peered through a chain-link fence and chatted with members of the Danville (VA) Braves' bullpen during Thursday night's game in southern Virginia.

A few feet away, a lone woman sat in the metal bleachers down the right-field foul line on a night the temperature was 94 degrees at game time.

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On the wall outside the home clubhouse of was a painting of Jason Heyward, a former star for Danville who has made it all the way to the major leagues with Danville's parent team, the Atlanta Braves.

It is here, in the Piedmont region of southern Virginia just a few miles from the North Carolina border, that former Loch Raven High and CCBC Essex standout Greg Ross is making his entry in pro baseball with Danville in the rookie Appalachian League.

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Ross, 21, a 6-foot-3 right-handed pitcher, was drafted in the 18th round by Atlanta in June after he posted a mark of 11-2 with an ERA of 1.49 this past season for Division III Frostburg State. He was the Capital Athletic Conference player of the year and just the third player in Frostburg history to be drafted by a big league club.

"It kind of made me work harder to try and earn a spot," he said of his Division III background. "It has been fun. The bus rides are pretty long. We are on the road [after a series] every three days. It is definitely a little different. It is fun. You are at the ballpark a lot. The competion is a little better than college."

Ross has certainly held his own on Danville's pitching staff, which includes the fourth-round picks of the Braves from the past two drafts.

And Danville has been the training ground for many future Atlanta pitchers.

"It gives me a lot of hope and something to look forward to," Ross said after Thursday's 5-4 win over the Burlington (NC) Royals, noting that a mural of former Danville pitcher Tommy Hansen of Atlanta is painted on a wall near the concession stand. There are pennants painted on a wall that depict Appy League titles by Danville in 2006 and 2009.

Ross, going into a scheduled start at home for Danville on Friday, was 3-0 with an ERA of 3.10 in five games, with three starts. He has earned a spot in the Danville rotation; in his first 20.1 innings, he allowed 18 hits and six walks with 21 strikeouts. Opposing hitters had an average of .237 against Ross.

Kurt Kemp, the director of player development for the Braves, told Patch that Ross "has done a nice job ... He gives us a chance to win."

The Danville roster includes shortstop Nick Ahmed, a second-round pick in June out of the University of Connecticut, and other Division I products. But Ross has held his own as a small-college player.

"We have a good one," Danville manager Randy Ingle said of Ross after Thursday's game. "Let me tell you, our scout [Gene Kerns of Hagerstown] did a good job finding him. We got a steal. He has done a super job for us. He is way advanced as a pitcher."

The next level in the Atlanta farm system is with Rome (GA) in the full-season, low Class A South Atlantic League. That league includes the Hagerstown Suns, a farm team of the Washington Nationals, and the Delmarva Shorebirds, an affiliate of the Orioles.

For now, Ross is living in an apartment complex with other players not far from Dan Daniel Memorial Park in Danville, an old textile city that has been hit hard by the recent recession.

Ross said when the Braves are at home for night games he is usually at the park by 2 p.m., and soon after is stretching and running and throwing on certain days prior to shagging flies during batting practice.

"It is like a bigger Frostburg," Ross said of Danville. "It is a very small town and everyone knows everyone."

The past two months has been a time of adjustment for Ross. His first son, Gabe, was born to his girlfriend on June 4, just a few days before he was drafted by Atlanta. His family has made the trip from Maryland to see him in Danville, where regular-season play ends in late August. The Braves are 15-15 following Thursday's win.

Ross said he now follows the pitching guidelines of the Atlanta farm system, which has developed standout pitchers such as Tom Glavine and John Smoltz over the past decades.

"It is definitely a set program I have not been apart of. A lot of guys [with the Braves] know what they are doing. I trust the system," he said.

And Ross is re-paying that trust with a strong start to his pro career.

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