SEQUIM — It was tough to keep Sequim’s Tanner Rhodefer off the baseball diamond this past spring.
When not taking the mound as the Wolves’ primary starting pitcher, he was covering a wide swath of territory in left field and hit for a high average at the plate.
Rhodefer, a senior, was 5-4 for Sequim this season with a 2.63 ERA.
The left-hander struck out 64 batters in 61 1/3 innings pitched, both team highs, as the Wolves rallied from a midseason slump to qualify for the 16-team Class 2A state baseball tournament.
At the plate, Rhodefer posted Sequim’s second-highest batting average (.386), and had four doubles, eight RBIs and nine stolen bases.
He was named first-team All Olympic League, and received second-team All-State honors from the Washington State Baseball Coaches Association.
Rhodefer also has been picked as the All-Peninsula Baseball MVP by area coaches and the Peninsula Daily News sports staff.
“He’s a very quiet and soft-spoken leader, but the kids all looked up to Tanner,” Sequim coach Dave Ditlefsen said.
“He’s hard worker and a baseball junkie.
“Anytime there was any downtime he was playing a
little baseball.”
One of Rhodefer’s better pitching performances included striking out 10 batters while scattering six hits in a complete game six-hitter victory against rival Port Angeles.
In the opening game of the district tournament, Rhodefer was at his most commanding, tossing a complete-game, two-hitter in a 3-1 victory over
White River.
Rhodefer struck out 12 batters and helped himself at the plate as well, going 2 for 4 with an RBI and a stolen base.
“He’s a smaller guy but he overpowered them with his fastball that game,” Ditlefsen said.
“They hadn’t seen any pitcher like that all season and had a tough time catching up to him.”
Rhodefer lists five pitches in his arsenal: a two-seam fastball, a traditional curve that drops away from batters, a cutting slider, a knuckleball thrown with more speed than the pitch is commonly known for and a four-seam fastball he calls upon in some situations.
“He has good command of all his pitches,” Ditlefsen said.
“When you can throw all those pitches for strikes, that’s when you can really keep hitters off-balance.”
The key to controlling matchups with batters is getting ahead early in the count, Rhodefer said.
“It’s nice to get first-pitch strikes,” Rhodefer said.
“When I can do that, I feel like I have control in all of those at-bats.
“You get batters reacting to what I’m throwing rather than being aggressive, and you can keep them off-balance.”
Rhodefer was lauded for his pitching, but it’s his improvement at the plate that may be even more impressive.
“My hitting hadn’t been really good in the past few years,” Rhodefer said.
“I worked on my hitting a lot entering this year.
“One of my goals was to have a batting average of above .330. And that was kinda high considering I only hit about .240 or .250 last year.”
During summer ball with Senior Babe Ruth team Wilder, Rhodefer labored to correct a mechanical glitch in his approach to the ball.
“My problem was I had a dip, a hitch in my swing, that caused my hands to drop a lot,” Rhodefer said.
“So, I worked on keeping my hands in the right spot and on simplifying my swing and not trying to do too much.
“Just keep my hands up and back. That, and making good contact.”
Wilder reps help hitting
The extra summertime games helped. Rhodefer felt that he made a breakthrough late in Wilder’s season last July.
“Toward the end, the last tournament for regionals, I think I hit .650,” Rhodefer said.
“I put in a lot of work with Wilder, and I think those extra practices and games helped me get better.”
The improvement was quickly noticed by Ditlefsen early during the high school season.
“What got him in trouble in earlier years was he would get underneath the ball and he had a lot of fly outs,” Ditelefsen said.
“He worked on his swing, keeping his hands on top of the ball and coming down through the ball and hit nearly .400.
“He really worked his way up from down in the batting order into the two-spot.
“This is the year he really got it going with his bat, and it started to click.”
Rangy in outfield
Rhodefer also flashed solid defensive skills in left field.
“He’s got such good speed and range he could have been our center fielder,” Ditlefsen said.
“He has that strong arm, too, so runners wouldn’t test him.
“With him and [center fielder] Dusty [Bates] in the outfield, we were very spoiled defensively.”
Rhodefer said his favorite moment from the season came during a state-clinching win against Sammamish at districts.
“We knew from about the fifth or sixth inning, and everybody got a little more excited with each out,” Rhodefer said.
“When we finally got that last out, I saw everybody on the team jump up and we all ran over to the side by the dugout to celebrate.”
The moment was made more special by the up-and-down nature of the team’s season.
“Even when we were in that midseason slump, I didn’t really doubt we would make it,”Rhodefer said.
“I never felt like we were in trouble. I expected us to make it. And then we ended up coming out and doing well at districts.
“It was just a really cool experience to reach our goal and to know we were going to state.”
Rhodefer is again playing for Wilder this summer and is weighing his options in regard to playing baseball at the community college level next year.
“I’ve had some talks with Columbia Basin, but right now I’m just going with whatever happens.”
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-452-2345, ext. 5250 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
