RedsXtra: Joe Boyle sets tone for Dayton Dragons with incredible start to season

DAYTON, Ohio – The Dayton Dragons, the Cincinnati Reds’ High-A affiliate, own the third-best record in all of minor-league baseball and it's Joe Boyle who sets the tone.

Boyle, a 6-foot-7 right-hander, takes the mound every Tuesday, the first game of each series.

Talk about leading by example. People playing video games would have trouble matching Boyle’s stat line. He’s permitted three hits across 21 2/3 innings – yes, only three hits. Command has always been his biggest issue, walking 19, but he’s struck out 35. One runner he left on base scored after he exited his last start, raising his ERA to 0.42.

Looking at it another way, hitters are almost twice as likely to strike out or walk (63.5% of plate appearances) against Boyle than put the ball into play (36.5%).

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Ask his teammates and coaches about him and they usually pause for a moment as a thesaurus flips through their heads. How does someone describe a pitcher that nobody can hit? Electric comes up often. Ridiculous, one said.

“I take it as my responsibility to set the tone for the week,” said the 22-year-old Boyle. “Not like these guys are going to do poorly if I throw poorly, but I like to think that it helps if I do well.”

Boyle, who was a fifth-round pick in the 2020 MLB Draft out of Notre Dame, is the type of pitcher who focuses more on the process than results. His ERA matters less to him than winning the race to two strikes in every at-bat, or his strikeout and walk percentages.

His analytical way of thinking almost seems to run counter to his arsenal of pitches. He throws in the upper-90s with his fastball, hitting 102 mph when he was a reliever in college, and he features a power slider and curveball.

When it’s all clicking, watch out.

In Boyle’s second start of the season, he was throwing his curveball for strikes in any count. Combined with his high-spin fastball, which excels at the top of the strike zone, hitters didn’t stand a chance. Boyle struck out of 10 of the 12 batters he faced.

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“Even though he’s been that dominant, the thing that makes me the happiest and most excited about Joe is that you would never know by watching him,” Dayton pitching coach Brian Garman said. “His level of preparation, his attention to detail between starts, is unbelievable.”

When the Reds drafted Boyle, he was viewed as a developmental project. He was known for his velocity and poor command. He was a reliever at Notre Dame and posted a 6.00 ERA with more walks (48) than innings pitched (36) in his three-year career.

Before Boyle’s first spring training, former Reds director of pitching Kyle Boddy asked him if he was ready to be a closer. Boyle responded he wanted to start.

“I think I have a really good chance of improving this year and getting better as a starter than I would have as a reliever,” said Boyle, who wanted to start at Notre Dame, but never received the opportunity. “It’s just getting more reps out there on the mound and just refining my process more and more.”

In a recent start, Boyle struggled across his first two innings. He needed 50 pitches to record six outs, issuing three walks and escaping one jam through an outfield assist at third base.

Garman, in his first season working with Boyle, remembered their conversation in the dugout. Boyle was focused too much on very specific details of his command, trying to make perfect pitches. Garman told him to throw pitches down the middle and give himself more room for error.

When Boyle returned to the mound for the third inning, he struck out the side.

“He could have very easily let that spiral to the point where he wouldn’t have gotten out of the third inning,” Garman said. “We’ve all seen that happen. For him to go out and strike out all three in the third and then get through the fourth, I have to sit back and tip my hat to the kid. That’s just something you don’t see every day. His commitment to being great is unmatched.”

As dominant as he’s pitched this season, there has been a lot of work between starts on improving his slider. The first step was improving the velocity, Garman said, and he’s recently turned it from a low-to-mid 80s pitch to an 87-93 mph offering.

Next up will be more work on improving the shape of the slider. Scouts view Boyle as a reliever and an improved slider should help him in any role.

“The biggest thing with Joe is reminding him how good he is,” Garman said, “and letting him know that he should pitching with a ton of confidence.”

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Dayton has a talented pitching staff filled with highly-regarded prospects like Bryce Bonnin (ranked No. 13 in the farm system by Baseball America), Christian Roa (No. 19), Connor Phillips (No. 23) and James Marinan (40-man roster addition last November).

Boyle, with his process-oriented approach, sets an example.

“Any guy who wants to succeed will talk to him and have a great relationship with him,” said Andrew Abbott, who was promoted from Dayton to Double-A Chattanooga this week. “He’s really knowledgeable.”

During spring training, Boyle had an opportunity to face big-league hitters in intrasquad scrimmages. He struck out and walked Albert Almora Jr. He gave up a barrel to Tommy Pham on a slider that hung over the plate.

The goal is consistency, Boyle says. That’s the biggest difference between guys pitching at High-A and guys who can shoot through the system on their way to the big leagues.

“When you throw against big leaguers like that, and you do well, you’re like OK, I have the stuff,” Boyle said. “It’s a matter of just getting better at being me, being me more often.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Reds top prospects: Joe Boyle sets tone for Dayton Dragons