{"id":3086,"date":"2013-07-17T09:03:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T13:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/?p=3086"},"modified":"2013-07-18T19:11:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T23:11:29","slug":"along-for-the-ride-with-chris-ryan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/?p=3086","title":{"rendered":"Along for the Ride with Chris Ryan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Along for the Ride with Chris Ryan<\/p>\n<p>New Hampshire has a incredibly proud baseball tradition from Penacook&#8217;s Red Rolfe being selected as a All-Star four times to Charlestown&#8217;s Carlton Fisk representing the American League eleven times to Exeter&#8217;s Chris Carpenter taking the hill for the senior circuit three times.<\/p>\n<p>Now a new Granite State baseball star has emerged. His name is Jeff Locke, he hails from North Conway and before this season he was recognized just as much for being a Clay Buchholz look alike as a Pittsburgh Pirates prospect.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" data-src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F101421816\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But, that has all changed. Locke, 25, is 8-2 this year for Pittsburgh with a 2.15 ERA<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really humbling to be  a part of it,&#8221; he said before last night&#8217;s All-Star game at Citi Field in New York. &#8220;I&#8217;ve known I&#8217;ve wanted to do this my whole life. As long as I&#8217;ve been playing baseball, I&#8217;ve wanted to play it at the highest level possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Locke comes from a typical Northern New Hampshire family. His dad is retired, but keeps his hands busy with odd jobs. His mother works as a caregiver to the elderly.<\/p>\n<p>His success this year is as surprising as it is amazing. Prior to this season Locke was just 1-6 with a ERA just south of six as a September call-up in 2011 and &#8217;12. He came into this season shooting to make the Pirates as the 5th starter and although he is the only starter to make the All-Star team he is staying humble.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve got to expect the best from yourself and never settle less,&#8221; said Locke. &#8220;But, the point where I was at was things really weren&#8217;t going well for me at this level. But, I also hadn&#8217;t had a extended period of time up here so it was tough to tell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Overall though he says the biggest difference in the pitcher he is now versus previous years is confidence.<\/p>\n<p>Pirates All-Star center fielder Andrew McCutchen said that Locke is a big reason the Pirates are contending for their first postseason appearance since 1992.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He just goes in and does his job,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He&#8217;s not boasting about it. You don&#8217;t see him bragging about it, he just gets it done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fitting since that&#8217;s kind of the New Hampshire way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Along for the Ride with Chris Ryan New Hampshire has a incredibly proud baseball tradition from Penacook&#8217;s Red Rolfe being selected as a All-Star four times to Charlestown&#8217;s Carlton Fisk representing the American League eleven times to Exeter&#8217;s Chris Carpenter taking the hill for the senior circuit three times. Now a new Granite State baseball [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blog"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3086"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3102,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3086\/revisions\/3102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}