Oregon State Baseball Players Honored Yet Again

Conforto was named a first-teamer while Fry and Wetzler were each selected to the second team.

Oregon State juniors Michael Conforto (pictured) and Jace Fry and senior Ben Wetzler have been honored by Perfect Game as 2014 All-Americans, it was announced on Tuesday. Photo Courtesy: OSU Athletics

(CORVALLIS, Ore. ) - Oregon State juniors Michael Conforto and Jace Fry and senior Ben Wetzler have been honored by Perfect Game as 2014 All-Americans, it was announced on Tuesday.

Conforto was named a first-teamer while Fry and Wetzler were each selected to the second team.

Conforto and Wetzler are recent runners-up for the Dick Howser Trophy – given annually to the nation’s top player – while Conforto is a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award. The winner of that award will be announced in mid-July.

Conforto has now been selected to four first teams while Fry and Wetzler have been named to two first teams and two second teams.

The three are the only players from the Pac-12 Conference to be named to any of Perfect Game’s three teams.

Conforto batted .345 for the Beavers this season, and led the Pac-12 in slugging percentage (.547), on-base percentage (.504), walks (55) and runs scored (52) and was second in runs batted in (56), third in home runs (seven) and doubles (16), fourth in total bases (111) and seventh in hits (70). He set the OSU single-season record for walks and broke the school’s record for RBI with 179.

He was also named the Pac-12 Player of the Year for the second consecutive season.

Wetzler continues to lead the nation in earned run average at 0.78, which should that hold (no other active player is in the top 10) would be the lowest ERA to lead the nation in nearly 35 years. The 0.78 mark is the third-lowest in Pac-12 history and helped Wetzler to a 12-1 record. Opponents batted just .143 against him, which also leads the nation.

The left-hander leaves the Oregon State program as the Beavers’ all-time leader with 36 wins and 369 1/3 innings pitched and is second only to Jonah Nickerson with 291 strikeouts. Wetzler was 22-2 over his last two seasons; the Beavers were 27-2 when he started over that same stretch.

Fry, meanwhile, finished one win shy of Wetzler in the Pac-12’s leaders’ column and finished the 2014 season with an 11-2 mark and 1.80 ERA In a team-leading 120 1/3 innings. He was named the Pac-12’s Pitcher of the Year – the Beavers’ first since the league unified prior to the 1999 season – after holding league foes to a .159 batting average in going 8-1 with a 0.92 ERA.

Fry was a third-round selection by the Chicago White Sox in the most recent MLB Draft. Conforto went in the first round to the New York Mets and Wetzler went in the ninth round to Miami.

Both Fry and Wetzler have signed with their respective MLB organizations.

Source: Oregon State Athletics