With expectations high, Hunter Harvey makes home debut tonight

For the third year in a row, the Orioles selected a talented right-handed pitcher with their first-round draft pick in 2013. Just like Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman before him, Hunter Harvey is beginning his first full season in the organization this year amid the high expectations that come with being a high pick.

Harvey made a very good first impression when he pitched a few innings on the farm last summer after the Orioles selected him with the 22nd pick out of Bandys High School in Catawba, N.C.

After pitching six scoreless innings in his full-season debut last week for Single-A Delmarva, Harvey will be back on the mound tonight at Perdue Stadium in Salisbury when the Shorebirds play their home opener against Greensboro.

Even though he was not drafted as high as Bundy or Gausman, who both went No. 4 overall, the expectations are still high for this 19-year-old right-hander.

"I just play my game really, what I was taught my whole life," Hunter said during a one-on-one interview at spring training at Twin Lakes Park. "Just go out on the mound and do it."

Harvey is the son of former big league pitcher Bryan Harvey, who saved 177 games over a nine-year big league career. Harvey's father led the American League with 46 saves in 1991 and notched another 45 in 1993 for the Marlins. Harvey's brother Kris played at Clemson, was a second-round pick of the Marlins in 2005 and spent eight seasons in the minors.

This kid grew up on baseball and learned from both his dad and brother.

"(My dad) taught me my whole life. Being around him and being around the game - my brother being in it for as long as he was - the knowledge they shared with me has helped so much," Hunter Harvey said.

Harvey looks like your average teenager and can be somewhat shy and reserved in an interview, but he looks like a 10-year veteran when he takes the mound.

"That's where I belong," he said.

Harvey went 0-1 with a 1.78 ERA over eight starts between the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League and short-season Single-A Aberdeen last summer after the draft.

In his South Atlantic League debut last Friday at Asheville, Harvey pitched six scoreless innings of four-hit ball. If you count his five no-hit innings last September for Aberdeen in a playoff game, he has now pitched 36 1/3 innings for Orioles farm clubs, going 1-1 with a 1.24 ERA. He has given up 25 hits with six walks and 45 strikeouts.

With an excellent curveball and a fastball that can touch the mid-90s, Harvey now will look to improve his changeup. It's a pitch he didn't throw in high school.

"It's still a work in progress," he said. "Just right now I'm getting comfortable throwing it. I've never thrown it. Just need to get a feel for it and begin trusting it, not trying to do too much with it."

In January, the kid got a chance to rub elbows with the big leaguers he hopes to one day join when he took part in the O's pitching mini-camp in Sarasota. He got to pitch while new pitching coach Dave Wallace and new bullpen coach Dom Chiti looked on.

"That was awesome. It was an honor to get invited to that. I was the youngest guy there. It was a huge honor. They just said they liked how I was and didn't want any changes. I was happy to hear that. Coming from the big league pitching coaches, that was a pretty big deal for me," Harvey said.

Now he gets set for the challenge and grind of full-season baseball. The organization may not let him throw much more than 100 innings this year, although no one is saying yet what his season innings limit is going to be. Harvey begins the year pitching in a six-man Shorebirds rotation.

"It's going to be really fun. A new experience. Going from throwing once a week to every five (or six) days," he said. "Will be a lot of work. Just will try to win and help the team any way I can. Keep trying to move up and get the dream of playing in the big leagues."

Harvey knows some days are coming when opposing hitters get to him and he sounds ready to deal with that when it happens.

"You are going to get hit, no way around it. It's going to happen, you have bad days," he said. "It's about trying to get better from what happened that day."