© Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News / USA Today Network
Changing Sides: Alabama Pitcher Hunter Furtado Familiar With Wake Forest
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Alabama baseball team is on the cusp of history.
Following an electrifying sweep of the Tuscaloosa Regional, the Crimson Tide (43-19, 16-14 SEC), the No. 16 national seed in the NCAA tournament, is just two wins away from reaching the promised land in Omaha, Neb., and the College World Series.
Standing in Alabama's way is the top team in the bracket, mighty Wake Forest, winners of 50 games and scorers of an astonishing 48 runs in regional play.
While much has been made of the Demon Deacons' run through the season, making college baseball fans familiar with a team now hosting a super regional for the first time ever, one Crimson Tide player is more familiar with Wake Forest than most.
Left-handed pitcher Hunter Furtado, in his second season as an Alabama player, spent the 2021 season in Winston-Salem. He pitched in 22 games before subsequently joining the Crimson Tide.
"It's cool [to go against them] because that's where my college career began, and I have a lot of friends there," Furtado said. "You always love to play against some of your old teammates, have that competitive fire between you. They're great guys over there. They've got a really good team, and I have a lot of respect for them. It'll be a really fun series to play against them, especially when they're the number one team in the nation."
Furtado said his focus is on helping his team, regardless of who he's matched up against.
"The thing is, if we win this series out there this week, we're in Omaha," he said. "That's been my goal every single year I've been in college, is to make it there, especially with this group of guys. It'd be a fun group to go with. I think we can really do some damage there."
He's been used out of the bullpen for a majority of his time in Tuscaloosa but delivered two of the most important starts of the 2023 campaign in the home stretch of the season. First, on May 9, he struck out seven in 3.2 innings against Troy in just the fourth game after interim head coach Jason Jackson took over. On May 23, he took the ball again, this time in a do-or-die game in the SEC Tournament against Kentucky.
"We love Hoover. We love going to the SEC Tournament," Furtado said. "It's a whole lot of fun when you go there. My biggest thing was — I was telling my roommate, when we were leaving the hotel, 'Let's stay a little longer, how about it?' We wanted to get that win, and stay in Hoover, and get a run going. I knew my job was to go out there and put up as many early zeroes as I could to help our team be able to win."
He put up five zeroes, enough to be credited with the win and keep his team in contention at the Hoover Met. That victory may well have been the difference between Alabama hosting a regional, which it did, or going on the road to start off NCAA tournament play.
Furtado said his confidence with the ball is high, and when a pitcher is starting, it's their game.
"When you're starting, it's your game," he said. "You don't have as much of a leash out there. You go as long as you can and do the best that you can. For me, the past two years in the summer, I've started in the Cape Cod League. I really enjoy starting, because, like I said, it's your own game at that point. That's why I have that confidence when I go out there to start. I know that I've done it before. It's something I did in some big games in the Cape too. I started the championship game there, and we won it. I've definitely had some good experience over the past two years, and when [Jackson] told me it was my time to go and start, I was really excited."
He said the Deacs' park can play offensive because of its dimensions, but worrying about the field's tendencies can bring about negatives on the mound.
"Some balls might go out that you're not used to seeing at Alabama, because our field plays a little bigger," Furtado said. "I know how the park plays, but at the same point, if you worry about the field, you're not going to be doing as well because you [might] be pitching to certain things. My best thing that I can do when I go out there is to attack the batter, and good things will happen if that happens."
According to the southpaw, some of the Crimson Tide's keys to victory are capitalizing on its potential to hit baseballs out, tagging the Wake arms with runs, while limiting fly balls on the defensive side
"What I see is a really good pitching staff [...] and not just that, they can hit it really well too," he said. "The main thing for us will just be to get some runs on the board off these guys that can pitch and get some home runs [in] that short ballpark. Some of the fly balls that would happen at Alabama would be home runs, otherwise, in this Wake Forest park. Also, [we need to] keep the ball on the ground when we're pitching to those guys. They obviously have a lot of power. Just pitching good and hitting good- that's how you win, right? It's just putting runs on the board and keeping [other] guys off of it."
Furtado said that reaching the College World Series would be special, especially for this committed, competitive group of Alabama players.
"That's why you come to college baseball. That's the championship series. It's where everybody wants to end up. That would be a great thing for our team, and I think we really, really deserve it. We're a hardworking team, we're very resilient, and it'd be a really good team to go to Omaha with. I feel like, we go there, we can really do some damage with the guys we have playing in the field, the guys we have in the pen, the starters that we have. It would just be a lot of fun, and a great memory."
See Also:
Alabama Baseball's Task in Super Regional More than Formidable: All Things CW
Hunter Furtado Could Be the Missing Piece in Alabama Baseball’s Postseason Rotation
