My significant other and I call him, “Bubblegum Brent.”
If you’re around early enough before the game and hang out by the Shorebirds dugout, you’re likely to see Brent Allar walking out with a handful of bubble gum, ready to toss it out to lucky kids sitting nearby. Each piece impresses a lasting memory for some child, each autograph he signs creating a new favorite Shorebird player.
There’s something to be said for players who are friendly to fans. Perhaps it’s the way the pregame ritual works out, but relief pitchers seem to be the ones who are most likely to be available for autographs and Brent is generally quite willing to oblige.
What’s even more fun is seeing this sort of player succeed, and Brent has been on a great roll of late. Since the league’s All-Star break Allar has made five appearances (including a spot start Monday at Lakewood) and been pretty dominant, allowing just 1 earned run in 12 1/3 innings. Against Hickory on July 5th he blew through the Crawdads to the tune of 12 batters up, 12 batters down with seven strikeouts. Brent followed that up with five shutout innings and a victory in that start against Lakewood, allowing two hits and one walk.
The key has been control. Brent has always been able to feature a lively mid-90’s fastball, but not always been able to know where it’s going. In 156 minor league innings over 5 seasons, Brent has fanned over a batter per inning (172 total) but walked almost as many – 118 free passes, or nearly 7 per nine innings. In this stretch Brent has walked just 4, a much more acceptable ratio of about one per three innings. And cutting walks has enabled Brent to bring his ERA down from the upper-6 range to a more respectable 4.45 for the season.
Allar is quite familiar to Shorebird fans, as the 14th round pick in 2006 has spent three seasons here (most of 2007 and all of 2009 and 2010.) He is also the oldest active Shorebird player, as he turned 25 in March. Obviously the Texan and onetime TCU Horned Frog needs to keep turning in these performances to resurrect his career and advance upward in the system.
Brent definitely has a lot of fans hoping for that sort of success.
