June 8, 2011
San Antonio – Greg Herbst’s presence on the mound this past season usually guaranteed at one thing for the St. Mary’s baseball team: handfuls of scouts armed with radar guns dotting the stands.
Preferring to stay in the moment, the senior flamethrower from San Antonio refused to pay much attention to the extra sets of eyes.
Today, though, he’s free to finally look around.
Herbst, a 6-foot-6 right-handed pitcher, was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 32nd round (991 overall) of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft on Wednesday.
It marks the second straight year that a Rattler was drafted, as catcher Ryan Morrow went in the 44th round to the Atlanta Braves last year.
A versatile player who graduated from O’Connor High School, Herbst played two seasons for St. Mary’s after transferring from Kansas University following his sophomore year.
With the Rattlers, he played in the infield and worked as a designated hitter before moving back to the mound this season.
To say he adjusted well would be an understatement.
Herbst, an accounting major who hadn’t pitched since high school, led the Rattlers with 85 strikeouts and paced all of St. Mary’s starting pitchers with a 2.29 ERA. He also went 8-3 over 15 starts, in addition to maintaining a .269 batting average with four home runs and 19 RBIs at the plate.
The performance netted him all kinds of honors, including being named First-Team All-Region by both Daktronics and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. He also won a Gold Glove award from the Heartland Conference and was named First-Team All-Conference by the league.
Herbst helped the Rattlers jump to as high as No. 3 in the nation en route to winning the Heartland Conference regular-season and tournament championships, and earning another South Central Region Tournament appearance. St. Mary’s finished the season 47-10, earning the best single-season winning percentage (.825) in the program’s history.
In 2010, Herbst drilled 12 home runs and 58 RBIs, while also hitting .376 and scoring 62 runs.
He lettered twice at O’Connor High School, including as a senior when he batted .421 with four home runs, 28 RBIs and eight stolen bases. He also went 5-4 with a 2.24 ERA in 59.1 innings that season. He was a member of the National Honor Society and graduated 12th in a class of 714.