After surrendering leadoff HR, Majors pitcher dominant

As Bryce Redaja was warming up before Saturday night's game, he'd explode off the rubber at the end of his wind-up. He just couldn't get used to the steepness of where his foot continued to land.

At Ahwatukee Park, where Redaja and the rest of the Ahwatukee Little League's Majors All-Stars have been practicing, the mound's slope is much more gradual. As a result, Redaja said, he never quite finished warming up.

Redaja - who battled strep throat during the week, missing a few practices only to come back Saturday night feeling fine - was pumped as he was starting the first game of the all-star season. But so was Chandler American's first batter, and he crushed a leadoff home run for a 1-0 lead.

"It was an OK height," Redaja said of the mound, "but when you came down on it, it was a lot steeper than Ahwatukee's."

He'd get used to it. The home run was the only hit Redaja gave up until the sixth inning; through five innings, he had thrown a mere 42 pitches.

"Very efficient," said Majors manager Jake Dominy. "He did a great job battling back (from the leadoff home run), not letting it get to his head."

Redaja went the complete game in the team's 7-2 win, striking out six and walking none.

He threw only 62 pitches - and as it turns out, that might have been the key stat to the whole night.

After feeling a tweak playing long toss last fall, he didn't pitch much during the regular Little League season - outings rarely lasted longer than 30 pitches - and Redaja only recently returned to feeling 100 percent when he threw.

"That saved my arm," Redaja said of his low pitch-count Saturday. "I came out of an injury about a month ago, a month and a half. We were just trying to build up my arm strength."

Little League allows pitchers to throw 85 pitches during a given outing, but Dominy said he'd limit Redaja to 65 during the all-star season because of his history.

"They were pretty stress-free," Dominy said. "What I look at is if a kid throws a lot of pitches in one inning, that means more to me than how many he throws. But he pitched a great game, he threw strikes."

Contact writer: (480) 898-4906 or rcasey@ahwatukee.com.