The Oregon baseball team’s clubhouse is flooded with new faces this year. Competition is going to be tight. With all the extra bodies, a name to keep a close eye on is freshman right-handed pitcher Isaac Ayon.
On Jan. 28, head coach Mark Wasikowski said that Ayon has as good of a young arm as he’s seen coming through the Oregon program, along with fellow freshman Rio Britton. With a ringing endorsement from his coach in his back pocket, Ayon has a chance to make an impact in an upperclassman-heavy rotation.
But as a freshman, Ayon is still going to have to prove himself.
“I try to stay even-keeled, because I know he has to perform,” his dad Mark said. “It’s always good to get high praise, but how you play on the field is what matters.”
As Ayon grew up, his family sacrificed time out of their own lives for Isaac.
“A lot of our vacations when we were younger were based around baseball tournaments, All-Star tournaments during the summer,” Mark said. “I’d say pretty much for a good run there, we were traveling all over the United States for tournaments. I have three other boys as well, and everyone else kind of went along for the ride.”
Ayon started his high school career at Bullard High School in Fresno but moved to Central High School after one year.
“The league wasn’t as competitive,” Mark said. “I was real concerned with his arm not getting overworked, and I actually moved him to Central with my high school coach who coached me … I had a real good relationship with him and I felt he would take care of my son the best he could.”
That coach was Brad Fontes, an eighth-round pick by the Texas Rangers in 1986 who Mark has known since he was 17. Fontes also worked with Ayon at Buchanan High School, where Ayon spent his junior and senior year.
Getting to work with two generations of Ayons, Fontes noticed Isaac’s striking resemblance to his father.
“[Isaac]’s a pretty easy going guy when he’s not pitching, he works hard and does his thing, but when he got on the mound that first squad game, I saw a little bit of his dad come out in him,” Fontes said.
In high school, Ayon was already working tirelessly to get to where he is today. In addition to excelling in the classroom, Fontes recalled him regularly doing workouts outside of team practices. He would often bring two or three teammates with him to these workouts, and talk to them about nutrition and staying in shape. He was committed to not only making himself better, but to making the people around him better — a presence that Fontes feels he will bring to the Oregon clubhouse.
“What originally impressed me was how hard he worked outside of our practices and our training and stuff like that,” Fontes said. “His motors just went all the time.”
Mark instilled these values in his son from an early age and has seen them progress as Isaac’s gotten older.
“Since he was little, I’ve always told him that someone out there is getting better, and I think he’s taken that to heart,” Mark said. “He’s been that kid that wakes up at four in the morning on his own before school and will go lift and run.”
Ayon’s resilience came in handy when his senior season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fontes felt that at the time the pandemic started, Ayon was just starting to blossom in terms of his command and becoming a pitcher as opposed to just someone who threw hard.
But at that point, Ayon had already worked so hard and committed so many hours that there was no turning back, according to Fontes.
Ayon was noticed by the Ducks while pitching in a tournament after he forewent a commitment to St. Mary’s due to their coach taking a job at Long Beach State. Soon after, Ayon visited Oregon and immediately knew this was where he wanted to continue his baseball career.
“Isaac fell in love with the facilities and the area and everything,” Mark said.
As disappointed as he was to not get to see Ayon pitch a full season as a senior, Fontes is excited to follow his collegiate career from afar.
“Isaac has put a ton of work in, and to see all that hard work that he’s put in in the weight room, and through his nutrition and on the field pay off, and to be able to go to a program like Oregon is rewarding,” he said.
The Ducks’ starting rotation currently features mostly juniors and seniors. The starting staff turned in a collective 3.85 ERA in the brief 2020 season, a solid but unspectacular mark.
Wasikowski, who described Ayon’s arm as “electric,” said that Ayon’s going to start in the bullpen, but his role could increase as the season goes on. He certainly has the potential to become a mainstay in the rotation; he’s a top-300 player in the country and the No. 48 player in California according to Prep Baseball Report, as well as the No. 20 right-handed pitcher in California according to Perfect Game.
He showed a glimpse of his talents in Oregon’s first game of the season, working around some control issues to record his first collegiate strikeout with the bases loaded.
As his collegiate journey gets started, Ayon is focused on making good first impressions.
“I hope he gets an opportunity to get into the rotation and hope Oregon wins baseball games,” Fontes said. “And I hope he gets it done in the classroom and works toward his degree and sets himself up for success in the future. And I think with his work ethic, he’ll have a chance to do that.”
Regardless of how Ayon performs initially or how this season is affected by COVID-19, the excitement that his family and coaches are experiencing as they watch from the sidelines is indescribable.
“It’s like a dream,” Mark said. “It’s just happened so fast.”
