Minnesota Blizzard Baseball

Like many Minnesota boys, Midland RockHounds right-handed pitcher Logan Shore spent his winters on ice skates during his youth.

Shore, a native of Coon Rapids, Minnesota, was taught the game of ice hockey by his father Lance, a former college player at Bethel University.

“(The frozen pond is) actually where I learned how to skate,” Shore said. “I was on skates before I could walk. A pond, like two blocks down from my house, is actually where my dad taught me to skate.”

While hockey was his winter love, baseball was Shore’s passion in the summer.

Baseball ultimately became Shore’s primary sport in high school and his career has taken off ever since.

The 23-year-old, who joined the RockHounds on May 24, is ranked as the No. 10 prospect in the Oakland Athletics’ organization by the publication Baseball America.

The 6-foot-2, 215-pound righty has posted a 3-0 record with a 1.85 earned run average and has 35 strikeouts and only six walks in 34 innings between Midland and advanced Single-A Stockton this season.

Although Shore couldn’t play winter baseball in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, like most Sun Belt kids, he said he was noticed because of a travel ball team that gave him opportunities to play in warmer climates. The exposure helped Shore land a scholarship with the University of Florida, where he served as the Gators’ Friday night starter in 2016 before Oakland took him in second round of the amateur draft.

“I’m just really, really blessed with talent and on top of that, there was a program up there called the Minnesota Blizzard,” Shore said. “It was like an elite program that just took the top kids from the Midwest, mainly Minnesota and we went and played tournaments in Arizona, Las Vegas, all over the place. That is kind of where I started to get some looks from that. They’ve exploded and they are sending guys to Division I schools all over the country, so I think that was definitely a big component in me going and playing baseball in the SEC.”

Shore played defenseman in hockey, lettering in the sport at Coon Rapids High, but it was clear that baseball was his calling after he garnered the state’s 2013 Gatorade Player of the Year, which is awarded to the top prep player.

“I was pretty good at hockey, but baseball always came a little more natural to me,” Shore said. “It wasn’t really until high school that kind of decided that baseball was my favorite sport.”

On Wednesday, Shore picked up his first Double-A win in the RockHounds’ 8-4 win over the Arkansas Travelers in his first outing at Security Bank Ballpark.

On his fourth pitch of the game, Shore surrendered a two-run homer to fall behind 2-0, but he settled down to hold the Travelers to four runs on nine hits and one walk over seven innings, while striking out seven.

“I thought he did a great job,” Midland manager Scott Steinmann said. “That shows why he was an early round pick. He’s got a lot of stuff and he’s got a lot of composure to pitch in games like that where he has to overcome adversity. I’m really impressed how mature he is on the mound. He’s done a great job for us so far.”

Shore likens his pitching style to Kyle Hendricks of the Chicago Cubs. He relies on locating his low 90s fastball to both sides of the plate, uses the sink on it to generate ground balls, and he throws a changeup to generate strikeouts when he’s ahead in the count.

Shore, who majored in family and community science at Florida, is involved in service activities in his free time, by volunteering his time at schools and churches. He has been associated with Feed My Starving Children, which provides food to malnourished kids abroad.

And Shore feels fortunate to be moving through the A’s organization with a chance to pitch in the majors someday.

“I feel extremely blessed just to have the opportunities that I had,” Shore said. “Being from Minnesota, we don’t have as many opportunities as the Southern high school kids do to get out and play baseball.”

Follow Christopher on Twitter: @chris_MRTsports