Solbach goes the distance for Silver Hawks

Arizona pitching prospect Markus Solbach is a well-traveled man with a fascinating back story. He's played professional baseball on three different continents, represented his country at the World Baseball Classic and been signed, released and signed again by a Major League team within 12 months.

The frequent flyer miles are nice, but Solbach prefers the relative stability of pitching for one team in one country. He still gets to travel, albeit by bus.

In his second Midwest League start, the right-hander scattered three hits and struck out three batters over nine innings Sunday in the South Bend Silver Hawks' 6-0 win over the Peoria Chiefs at Four Winds Field.

"It was a great day, a great game," Solbach said. "Everything worked out. My defense worked behind me because I didn't have a lot of strikeouts, but I got the ground balls when I needed them."

He retired the first seven batters he faced Sunday before hitting Kenneth Peoples-Walls with a pitch in the third inning. But South Bend backstop Grant Nelson threw the would-be thief out trying to steal second base.

C.J. McElroy picked up Peoria's first hit -- an infield single with one out in the fourth, but he was also nailed trying to swipe a bag as the 22-year-old faced the minimum through the first four innings.

Only two other Chiefs reached base against Solbach the rest of the way. Justin Ringo doubled to right field to lead off the fifth, but he was stranded on third, and Richy Pedroza snapped a string of 11 consecutive outs with a two-out base hit to center field in the eighth.

"My fastball command was pretty good today and my changeup was by far my best pitch," said Solbach, who induced 10 ground-ball outs and eight more through the air. "I was sitting 88-91 mph, but my teammates said it was a deceiving fastball. Normally it's a little harder, but I was cruising today and didn't have to top out.

"I just learned a slider last week and I threw it for the first time today. The first two were pretty bad, then I got my release point and got three ground balls in a row. I used to throw it more like a slurve, but it was a little too slow, so my pitching coach [Doug Bochtler] taught me a new grip."

The 6-foot-5 hurler grew up in Dormagen, a town of around 63,000 people in northwestern Germany between Dusseldorf and Cologne. He was raised in a nation where soccer is king and the borders of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg are within two hours' drive of his home.

He got his first taste of baseball in America. His family relocated to Detroit when he was 6 when his father, a long-time Ford employer in the manufacturer's Germany factory, got offered a two-year post at the company's main plant in the Motor City. Solbach attended his first baseball game two years later and never looked back.

"Two weeks before I went back to Germany, I saw my first Detroit Tigers game," said Solbach, who pitched for Germany in the 2012 World Baseball Classic against Canada. "My parents couldn't get me out of there. I came back to Germany, and in second grade, a friend who played baseball in my home town asked me if I wanted to come to her practice. I picked up a ball for the first time and loved it. It's been a long journey these last four or five years."

At age 16, he joined on with the Pulheim Gophers in the Bundesliga -- Germany's top league -- and three years later, he moved to Australia for five months and played in the Australia Baseball League with the Melbourne Aces.

The Twins took a chance on him as a non-drafted free agent in 2011, but after three partial seasons in the Gulf Coast League, they let him go. Between 2011 and 2013, Solbach logged just 54 2/3 innings over 31 relief appearances. Last July, after just 9 1/3 innings across five appearances out of the bullpen, the Twins released him and he latched on with the Windy City Thunderbolts, an independent league team in the Frontier League.

He went 5-1 in 10 games with the Thunderbolts in 2013, and he posted a 1-1 record and an 0.86 ERA in three Frontier League outings earlier this season before the D-backs swooped in to sign him in June.

"I think I maybe didn't make the progress as quickly as they thought I would," Solbach said of being released by the Twins. "Getting released is never easy. It was probably the worst day of my life. But I talked with Bill Bryk, the scout for the D-backs, and we stayed in touch when I went back to Chicago. I sent him video every week.

"I had three really good outings and all of my teammates thought I would get signed after my second start, but I didn't want to get too disappointed if it didn't work out. You can never be too sure about where you're at. When I'm on the mound I try not to think about being released because I want to stay positive, but getting released is always in the back of my head."

Across two levels this year, Solbach is 3-3 with a 4.98 ERA. Prior to his promotion to South Bend, he was 2-2 with a 5.33 mark in six games, including the first four starts of his Minors career, in the Rookie-level Pioneer League with Missoula. In his first Midwest League start Monday, Solbach allowed six runs on nine hits over four innings in the loss against Fort Wayne.

On Sunday, South Bend second baseman Fidel Pena was 3-for-4 with a triple, two RBIs and two runs scored and third baseman Marty Herum added a two-run homer, his fourth dinger of the year.

Peoria's Rob Kaminsky (4-2) allowed two runs on three hits and three walks over 3 2/3 innings.