Elliot Johnstone's success has shown the value of having a professional baseball team in New Zealand.

The Auckland Tuatara aren't just growing the popularity of baseball in New Zealand with their great season.

The ball club are also achieving another of their stated goals, which is giving opportunities for Kiwi players to shine and young pitcher Elliot Johnstone is a perfect example of that.

The Tuatara play the Melbourne Aces this week in the ABL semifinals, with first game away on Thursday, followed by being at home on Saturday night and again on Sunday, if necessary in the best of three game series.

The crowds have risen throughout the season at North Harbour Stadium and at the team's media session on Tuesday all but one of New Zealand's major media organisations came along.

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But as well as growing the sport, the other key objective of the Tuatara was to offer opportunities to local players and that's just what they've done for Johnstone.

The Aucklander has had a sensational second season at the Tuatara and a number of MLB clubs are interested in signing him as soon as the season is over.

SMP IMAGES/ BASEBALL AUSTRALIA Crowds have swelled over the season for the Tuatara, with over 7500 attending last weekend's series against Brisbane.

"It's been a great opportunity for myself," the 20-year-old Johnstone said of being at the Tuatara.

"When I was younger I thought about going to college. I went away on a trip and ended up getting injured while I was over there.

"I had a year to rehab my injury and with that, the Tuatara came around last year for the first time and I said I was going to give this a crack and go to the trial.

"Last year was a bit of a learning curve, I hadn't pitched at the level the ABL is at, I took on board what happened and knew what I needed to improve on to get better for this season."

As Johnstone admits, last season was a tough one, he got lit up badly.

In the 16 innings he pitched, he gave up 25 earned runs, 17 walks, just eight strikeouts and had an eye watering ERA of 14.06.

But as they say, baseball is a game of adjustments and Johnstone made them.

This season he's pitched 22 innings, there have been just three earned runs, eight walks, 25 strikeouts and he boasts an impressive ERA of 1.19. So no wonder MLB clubs are taking notice.

"Mintzy (Tuatara manager, Steve Mintz) and I spoke at the end of last season," Johnstone explained.

"To improve a couple of things with my mechanics and then over the off season I was staying in touch with Mintzy and also the pitching coach DJ [Carrasco], just working on a couple of things.

"I changed my pitch grips up and getting a lot more confidence has boosted me this year."

Mintz has been willing to put Johnstoner into tight situations in games this season, a sign that he trusts him.

Even though Johnstone had a tough first season, Mintz believed that if the young pitcher made changes, he could be successful.

"From last year to this year, he's pounding the zone," Mintz said.

"Last year there were a lot of balls, falling behind in counts and he got busted up.

"But at the end of the season we made a couple of adjustments on the rubber and I told him flat out, you need to do these things if you want an opportunity to play with the Tuatara next year.

"He took some hard love and took it to heart and around June these guys started sending us videos of what they were doing and on that I could see he was doing the things we'd talked about.

"Now he's translated that into the game, he's pitching ahead a lot more, he's got a fastball he can throw for a strike, a slider that's got some swing and miss to it and even his change up has developed last year to this year, being able to throw that to left handed hitters and getting some swings too.

"So all of the improvements he's made from last year to this year has been phenomenal and that has to go to him, because I'm here all of the time.

"But the work he's put in since the Tuatara season last year is a credit to him."