Whatever reason Cal Quantrill had to stress even just his first warm-up pitches as a pro, his first since elbow reconstruction 15 months earlier, was mitigated to a small degree by the very site of his organizational debut, one of several back fields at the Padres’ spring training complex.

The one used for Arizona League games is lit, but not very brightly. The official scorer gets the job done on an elevated, fold-up table behind the high-school-esque backstop. The aluminum bleachers outside the chain-link fence are mostly serviceable even when word gets out that the eighth overall pick in the country is making his professional debut.

Indeed, it took a while for the gravity of it all to hit Quantrill as he warmed up in the bullpen on June 30.

Then it did.


“You cross that line,” Quantrill said with a snap of his finger, “and it’s like, ‘Oh boy, I have not done this for a long time.’ I had that heart pumping. It felt like I was in a big league game. It was the Arizona League, but that didn’t matter to me.

“It was amazing.”

It’s just the start, too, albeit one that could pick up speed as Quantrill rebuilds his foundation as a pitcher in pro ball.

As much money as the Padres have invested on amateur talent this offseason – some $80 million and counting – the organization is certainly preaching patience when it comes to the dozens of teenagers who joined the farm system this summer, either via the draft or the organization’s unprecedented dip into international amateur market. On the flip side, Quantrill headlines a subset of the Padres’ amateur spending spree that hit the ground running this summer, the club’s early college-aged draftees largely breezing through their initial minor league stops in hopes of providing big league answers sooner rather than later.


That’s the plan, anyway.

“You hope those guys are on a faster track,” General Manager A.J. Preller said. “We’re not going to hold back and say they’ve got to get a certain amount of innings in the minors before we bring them up. They’ll tell us when they’re ready to go.”

Although a handful pitched as high as high Single-A Lake Elsinore, none had as impressive a debut as fourth-rounder Joey Lucchesi.

The nation’s strikeout leader at Southeast Missouri State, the 23-year-old left-hander paired a fastball that topped out at 96 mph with pinpoint command to fan 56 batters against just three walks in 42 innings, most of that at short-season Tri-Cities.


There, the quirky Lucchesi – “Joey Fuego” if you ask him or “Sloppy Joe” if you want to rile him up – made quite the impression before Quantrill and first-rounder Eric Lauer even made it out of the rookie Arizona League.

“His motion is so funky and off the wall that hitters can’t time it up,” Lauer said. “They can’t do a nice (swing) load because nothing’s going to be in sync with his windup and how long it takes, how intricate it is. He’s a mechanical genius – but just watch him.

“Don’t do it. Because I don’t think many other people can do it.”

The 25th overall pick out of Kent State, the 21-year-old Lauer didn’t exactly need pointers.


Pitching largely off a fastball that touches 94 mph, he started his stay at Tri-Cities with 13 straight scoreless frames after a brief stint in Arizona, allowed more than one run in just three of his 10 starts and finished with two scoreless frames in the Midwest League.

Likewise, Quantrill moved through three lower levels in his introduction to pro ball, albeit a bit rockier of a road at times as the Stanford product makes his way back from Tommy John surgery in March 2015. Even without the height of his success this summer – eight strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings shutout innings of two-hit ball in his second short-season start – Quantrill’s position as the first of seven college arms selected in the first 10 rounds of the draft figures to have that group pushing each other throughout their climb through the system.

“We’re always charting each other, so it’s a silent competition,” Lucchesi said. “We don’t talk about it, but it’s like, ‘OK, I’ve got to push myself because he’s working hard.’

“We’re not cocky about it. We’re all just trying to be the best pitcher. It’s all good competition.”


Which is what Quantrill missed most while sidelined some 15 months.

Slowly but surely, tedious rehab at Stanford gave way to his first bullpen.

The Padres called, eventually visited quite a bit – “There’s nothing I can hide from them,” the son of a former big leaguer said with a laugh – and dropped him into their system. He took some lumps late in the year at low Single-A Fort Wayne (nine earned runs over 4 2/3 innings there), he’ll take even more strides while reintroducing his slider during instructional league and he’ll hope to start his first full season next spring without much limitations.

Those are all the reasons that Quantrill could have easily stressed every one one of his warm-up pitches in the bullpen ahead of his late June debut. The most mundane of the outs he’d record in any game – a first-inning comebacker – grounded him enough to take these next steps, one right after another, each sturdier than the next.


“I hadn’t had a comebacker in 15 or 16 months – I almost froze not knowing what to do with the ball,” Quantrill said. “I was so engaged with pitching and being back that I almost tripped running over to first to toss him the ball.

“I just started laughing. That’s when I felt like I was back.”

________________

FAST-TRACKED

The Padres selected seven college pitchers through the first 10 rounds of the draft. Here is how that group fared in half a season of pro ball:


1 (8) | RHP Cal Quantrill (Stanford)0-5, 5.11 ERA, 37 IP, 8 BB, 46 Ks, .264 avg. against (R, SS, A)

1 (25) | LHP Eric Lauer (Kent State)1-1, 2.03 ERA, 31 IP, 9 BB, 37 Ks, .211 avg. against (R, SS, A)

4 (114) | LHP Joey Lucchesi (SE Miss. State)0-2, 1.29 ERA, 42 IP, 3 BB, 56 Ks, .204 avg. against (SS, A)

5 (144) | RHP Lake Bachar (Wis.-Whitewater)2-2, 3.19 ERA, 36.2 IP, 7 BB, 41 Ks, .218 avg. against (R, A, A+)


6 (174) | RHP Will Stillman (Wofford)2-0, 2.93 ERA, 27.2 IP, 15 BB, 32 Ks, .186 avg. against (SS, A)

8 (234) | LHP Ben Sheckler (Cornerstone)1-3, 4.01 ERA, 33.2 IP, 13 BB, 29 Ks, .269 avg. against (R, SS)

9 (264) | RHP Jesse Scholtens (Wright State)0-1, 1.54 ERA, 35 IP, 7 BB, 39 Ks, .246 avg. against (SS, A, A+)

jeff.sanders@sduniontribune.com; Twitter: @sdutSanders