Kyle Harrison turned heads in his pro debut last season when he won Low-A West Pitcher of the Year honors. In 2022, he’s looking for a repeat performance.

MLB’s No. 74 prospect fired another gem on Friday night, this time striking out nine over five shutout innings in High-A Eugene’s thrilling 1-0 victory over Spokane. Harrison allowed only two hits and a walk as he tossed 44 of his 62 pitches for strikes.

The Giants’ No. 3 prospect had some trouble in the first inning, issuing a free pass to the first batter he faced and surrendering a two-out single after he struck out Drew Romo. With runners on the corners, he fanned Daniel Montano to escape the jam and went on to retire the next seven batters, three of them on strikeouts. Harrison never ran a three-ball count on a batter after the leadoff walk.

Romo led off the fourth inning with a single, and a fielder’s choice put him at second with one out. With Spokane threatening to break the scoreless tie, he again struck out Montano and caught Robby Martin Jr. looking to emphatically keep Spokane off the board. He needed just 10 pitches to work through a scoreless fifth to cap off his outing.

The 20-year-old generated 13 swings-and-misses while striking out nine of the 18 batters he faced (six swinging and three looking).

The game was a classic pitchers’ duel all night – it was a scoreless contest heading into the bottom of the ninth, and both teams had combined for just five hits until Ghordy Santos sent the Eugene crowd home happy with a walkoff dinger on the first pitch he saw.

Harrison, selected in the third round of the 2020 Draft out of the high school ranks, had a fantastic pro debut in 2021, leading the Low-A West (now the Single-A California League) with a 3.19 ERA and 14.3 strikeouts per nine innings. The southpaw fanned 157 batters across 98 2/3 innings (23 starts) and allowed just three home runs all year while holding opposing batters to a .232 average. Through two starts this season, Harrison has struck out 16 over nine innings with four hits, one walk and zero runs allowed.