Jackson Coutts is finding that a big difference between high school baseball in eastern Maine and the Division I Atlantic 10 Conference is that pitchers now will actually pitch to him.
But those college hurlers are learning what the high school pitchers did, that there’s often a price to pay for challenging the 6-foot-3, 235-pound freshman at the University of Rhode Island.
Coutts, named Maine’s Mr. Baseball after leading Orono High School to the 2017 Class C state championship, is firmly planted in the middle of the Rams’ batting order this year. He led URI with a .308 batting average entering Friday’s game against LaSalle in Kingston, Rhode Island.
He also has a team-leading 36 hits and shares the lead with 14 RBIs while batting third for Rhode Island (16-25 overall, 6-9 A-10).
“We’re excited about his future here,” said URI coach Raphael Cerrato of Coutts, who is one of three men nominated for the university’s freshman athlete of the year award. “If he can keep developing I think he’s going to have a chance to play at the next level the way he swings the bat.”
Student of the game
Coutts took an impressive high school baseball resume to URI.
In addition to winning the Dr. John W. Winkin Award, the son of UMaine softball head coach Mike Coutts and Black Bears assistant coach and Senior Associate Director of Athletics Lynn Coutts was a three-time Penobscot Valley Conference Player of the Year. As a senior, he batted .632 with two home runs and 11 doubles for coach Don Joseph’s Orono team.
The hard-throwing right-hander also compiled an 8-1 pitching record with a 2.72 earned run average and 71 strikeouts in 41 1/3 innings.
Perhaps the biggest badge of baseball honor Coutts unwittingly earned was that he was walked 25 times, including 20 intentional walks, including three with the bases loaded.
Coutts has walked 14 times in 133 plate appearances in 32 games after missing URI’s first nine contests with a lower back injury.
“The transition from high school baseball to DI is pretty crazy,” acknowledged Coutts, “especially since our season started with us playing some pretty good teams. When we played Florida I was actually pretty nervous because they were the best team in the country. There’s really good pitching down here but it’s been a pretty good adjustment for me.”
While Coutts has adapted statistically to college baseball, he says the effort has remained a work in progress since his arrival at URI last fall.
“I knew I had a lot of work to do because I wasn’t quite ready for it, but throughout the fall it kept getting better,” he said. “The biggest differences are the secondary pitches and the third pitches they have here. In high school most kids have a good fastball and that’s about it, but at this level they have really good fastballs, they can locate pretty much anywhere they want and then they can drop in a changeup or curveball for a strike at any time. That really keeps me on my toes.”
Coutts has yet to display the home-run power that shaped much of his baseball reputation at Orono, but his coach believes that’s a matter of time.
“He’s been a line-drive hitter and we’re trying in a sense to get him to elevate the ball a little more,” said Cerrato. “I think he can be a .330, .340 hitter but in the future also potentially be a double-digit home run guy for us. He puts on shows in batting practice that are just ridiculous.”
Position TBD
Coutts was known for his versatility in high school, but where he ultimately will play at the college level remains to be determined.
Recruited as both a pitcher and everyday player, Coutts has worked out at catcher, first base and outfield but has seen most of his duty as a designated hitter.
He’s only pitched twice for a total of one inning on a deep URI staff, but Cerrato envisions Coutts playing a key role for URI on the mound, in the outfield and at the plate as his career evolves.
“It’s tough to be a two-way guy but we definitely think that’s in his future, maybe as a back end of the bullpen-type guy,” Cerrato said. “He’s got to get himself in a little better shape to do both because it’s tough.”
The kinesiology major has had to hone his time-management skills as he juggles academics — it’s finals week on the URI campus — with multiple baseball responsibilities.
“It’s actually takes a lot of time to do both,” said Coutts. “I have to spend a lot of time on my own doing things because there’s not enough time in practice to get a good amount of time both pitching and in the field.
“It will be interesting to see what I do in the upcoming years,” he added.
Playoff push
URI began the season 2-11 and lost its first six Atlantic 10 games, but the Rams are riding an eight-game win streak, five in conference play.
“We’ve finally started to hit as a team,” said Coutts. “Before we were a little streaky and couldn’t tie a lot of hits together and didn’t hit well with runners in scoring position but we’ve turned that around.”
The winning streak also coincided with Coutts moving from cleanup to third in the batting order.
“That’s a great spot for him,” Cerrato said. “I think he can be a great hitter for us for at least the next two years — he might get drafted after his junior year. He’s a contact guy, he can hit for average and he can hit for power.”
URI sits eighth in the A-10 standings with three weekends of conference play remaining, 1 1/2 games behind seventh-place Richmond. The top seven teams advance to postseason play.
“Starting conference play by getting swept the first two weekends put us in a really big hole but since then we’ve had to fight like it’s always our last weekend to try to get to the A-10 tournament,” said Coutts, who will play this summer for the North Adams (Massachusetts) SteepleCats of the New England Collegiate Baseball League.
“If we keep playing the way we are now we’ll make the tournament, and if we do make it I think we’ll be pretty dangerous.”
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