SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The Washington Nationals have had some success sending members of the most recent Draft class to the Arizona Fall League, but it’s been a while since they've done so.
It marked a different time with a later Draft signing deadline, but their back-to-back No. 1 overall picks made their unofficial professional debuts here, with Stephen Strasburg coming in 2009 and Bryce Harper following in 2010. Ethan Petry doesn’t exactly have the same profile, but he is the only 2025 draftee in the league this year and the second-round pick out of the University of South Carolina is thrilled to keep getting some playing time after missing much of his junior season with a shoulder injury.
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“It's a great opportunity for me and I'm very grateful for it,” the Nationals’ No. 8 prospect said. “I thank the Nationals for sending me out here and believing in me that I can compete against guys like this.”
When healthy, Petry is all about his power potential from the right side of the plate. He set a freshman record for the Gamecocks with 23 homers in 2023, then hit 21 more as a sophomore. He also swatted 11 homers with a wood bat in the Cape Cod League that summer, then managed just 10 in 44 games in his Draft year because of that sprained left shoulder.
When he’s feeling good, though, the long balls come. Petry hit two in 24 games during his pro debut with Single-A Fredericksburg and had a zero in the home run column over his first 11 AFL games, something he remedied in his first at-bat on Tuesday afternoon with a 422-foot two-run shot in Scottsdale’s 5-4 victory over Surprise. He recalled a long at-bat last week as a bit of a turning point in terms of feeling more comfortable in the box.
“I had an 11- or 12-pitch at-bat at Mesa … and I was like, ‘I belong here,’” Petry said. “I kept stacking good at-bats, taking my singles, taking my walks, getting hit a couple of times and just getting a bunch of barrels. We worked really hard in the cage, just kept focusing on staying to the big part of the field and good things happened. Keep working hard, good things happen. I'm a big believer in that.”
As good as the Southeast Conference is, Petry would like to have a word with those who equate it to Double-A pitching. It’s been an adjustment for the 6-foot-4 slugger, with every arm he’s seen out here having a “really good breaking ball with an elite fastball.”
Petry thought he was going to see a heater from right-hander Jose Corniell (TEX No. 3). Hitting at the bottom of the lineup, he noticed that the Saguaros’ right-hander was leaning heavily on the pitch and having success with it. So when Corniell came with a 94-mph version of it on a 1-0 count, Petry didn’t miss it, registering an exit velocity of 112.4 mph.
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“I saw that he liked his fastball,” he said. “I'm the eighth hitter on this team, and when you see a guy throwing a bunch of fastballs, getting guys out with his fastball, I was just on the fastball the whole time. I got me a good pitch to hit and I just delivered.”
Petry knows he’s not even close to figuring it all out, and as confident as he’s been feeling at the plate, especially after the home run, he was humbled in his next two trips to the plate. He struck out swinging in both instances on breaking pitches. He knows this is an area he’ll have to keep focusing on, that less whiff will lead to more power production, and that he can learn as much as an ugly swing in his second at-bat of the game, also against Corniell, as he could the home run.
"That was a sword, yeah. The definition of a sword right there,” Petry laughed. "I feel like my second at-bat was immature of me. I’m not too hard on myself, but I could be better in that situation. I know that he's going to try to get me out with the slider because I just hit his fastball pretty far, so I have to be mature in that situation and you learn from those situations. I've cut down on my swing-and-miss here and worked a lot of walks and hitting the balls in the zone.”