D-backs Didn’t Forget About Donatella

PHOENIX—In town to scout University of San Diego shortstop Kyle Holder last spring, scouting director Deric Ladnier stopped by UC San Diego to see righthander Justin Donatella, whom scout Jeff Mousser was planning to turn in as a potential late-round pick.

“I watched him pitch for two or three innings and I said to (Mousser), ‘Don’t let me forget about Justin Donatella,’ ” Ladnier said.

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He didn’t forget, and Donatella’s first month in full-season ball has been hard to forget.

Through seven starts at low Class A Kane County, he went 4-1, 1.41 with four walks, 28 strikeouts and no home runs allowed in 38 innings.

The Diamondbacks took Donatella in the 15th round in 2015 because they liked how he threw strikes to both sides of the plate and worked the bottom of the zone with downward plane, Ladnier said.

Donatella is doing those same things this season because, well, he doesn’t have much choice.

“Anything to help my fastball,” Donatella said. “It’s not very fast.”

Donatella usually sits in the 88-90 mph range with his sinker, but given his 6-foot-6 frame and angle he’s been able to mostly keep the ball on the ground.

“With the sink I get, if (the ball is) down and they hit it, it tends to be a groundball,” said Donatella, 21, who also throws a slider and a changeup. “The guys have been playing pretty good defense behind me, and that helps, too.”

Donatella won the organization’s pitcher-of-the-month honors in April, taking home the award despite not having the most electric repertoire.

“Sometimes we get enamored of stuff or status or whatever, but sometimes the difference-makers are right under your nose,” farm director Mike Bell said. “He throws strikes and competes well in the strike zone with his stuff.”

SNAKE BITES

• Righthander Ryan Burr, who so impressed club officials last year that they thought he could develop into a late-season big league option in 2016, missed all of April with a groin injury. The 2015 fifth-round pick last year out of Arizona State reported to Kane County the first week of May.

• Righthander Breckin Williams, a fourth-rounder from Missouri last year, has a UCL strain, Bell said. “He’s not going to require surgery, but he’s going to be down for a few months,” Bell said. “If we get him back (this year), it would be August.”