Voyagers' Hansen allows one hit, fans 11

Rookie-level Great Falls pitching coach Matt Zaleski had an inkling that Alec Hansen was going to have a pretty good night on the mound Friday. 

"I could actually see in the bullpen he had a really good warmup before the game," Zaleski said. "He was locating pretty much everything. The fastball was downhill. He kept it low and elevated at times when he needed to, and with his stuff, that's pretty much all he needs to do."

Hansen, the White Sox second-round pick in this year's Draft and their eighth-ranked prospect, recorded a career-high 11 strikeouts while allowing one hit and one walk over six innings in Great Falls' 12-0 rout of Idaho Falls at Centene Stadium at Legion Park.

"His fastball command was excellent," Zaleski said. "He used his off-speed -- curveball and slider -- effectively, showed some good changeups and located those at times. He was just really, really impressive."

The 21-year-old right-hander issued his lone walk with one out in the first, then retired the next 15 batters, including striking out the side in the third on 13 pitches.

"He was getting ahead in the count," Zaleski said. "He was ahead on 14 hitters and put away 11 of them with strikeouts; other ones were on ground outs. His delivery has gotten a lot better, so we are just continuing to harp on the good quality things that he does and get him in the good positions to where he can throw his fastball downhill and get ahead early in the count and put them away."

The University of Oklahoma product gave up a one-out single to Luke Willis in the sixth but retired the next two batters on a fly ball and a punchout. He threw 85 pitches, two more than his previous outing on July 29 against Billings.

"[The development of his stamina] has been going well," Zaleski said. "He allowed us to [push his pitch limit] through six innings instead of five, like last time. We'll keep building him up and, hopefully, he continues to have quality success like this."

The 6-foot-7 Hansen was drafted by the White Sox after a three-year career at Oklahoma, where he struck out 185 batters over 145 innings. He began his professional career with three appearances in the Rookie-level Arizona League before joining Great Falls on July 13.

"He really doesn't have to deal with a whole lot of adjustments," Zaleski said. "We just put our 2 cents in as coaches to try to help him mechanically to where he can get over the top of the ball and throw it down in the zone and uses his off-speed. He's been phenomenal as far as being very coachable. He's eager to learn and ready to listen, so that's always a positive for a kid coming out of college. We love to see that."

Brandon Magallones, Aaron Bummer and Ryan Hinchley each tossed a hitless inning after Hansen exited as the Voyagers registered their Pioneer League-leading third shutout.

White Sox No. 27 prospect Corey Zangari, Joel Booker and Aaron Schnurbusch tallied three hits apiece and combined for seven RBIs to lead the Voyagers offense.