By Craig Juer -- Daily Staff Writer

STRASBURG — In his career, he has led the area in hits, batting average, home runs, steals, runs, RBIs (twice) and now wins. He has won a state championship, been named the best player in his district and hit a grand slam in a regional championship game.

The only thing that is unknown about Timmy McDonald's baseball abilities is whether he could throw a fastball so hard that Timmy McDonald could not hit it.

"In our district, I think he maybe was not the best position player in our district and he maybe was not the best pitcher — I'm not saying he was or he wasn't," McDonald's coach, Jeff Smoot said. "But when you factor the two in together, I think he certainly was probably the best player in our district."

Which is why McDonald was named the Bull Run's Player of the Year for 2008. He had been an elite hitter for two, maybe three years prior to his senior season. In 2005, as a freshman, he stole six bases and drove in 19 runs — not bad for a kid called up from JV almost as an afterthought. He batted .500 or better in both his sophomore and junior seasons. Finally, this season, his pitching caught up — his 10-1 record was the best in the area, and he added a 1.68 ERA and 83 strikeouts. Because of his dominance both at the mound and the plate — not to mention on the basepaths and in the outfield — McDonald is The Northern Virginia Daily's 2008 Baseball Player of the Year.

"I think he threw a little harder," Smoot said of McDonald's growth as a pitcher. "In fact, I think he threw a lot harder, actually. I think he understood how to pitch better than he did a year ago."

McDonald attributed what he learned about pitching to his grandfather, Ed Wymer, a former Sherando Warriors pitcher.

"He's the one that taught me how to pitch, all different grips and how not to stride out too far," McDonald said. "All that stuff."

His demeanor, too, has improved on the hill. Nick Barnes, who caught McDonald in 2007 (when he went 7-3 with a 2.70 ERA), came back after his freshman season at the University of Charleston to see a few of Strasburg's playoff games this year.

"That was a big thing last year — if Timmy didn't have confidence, he wasn't going to throw well," Barnes said. "But in the games this year that I saw him throw, he seemed pretty confident out there on the mound."

It's doubtful he picked that up from his grandfather — he came home from the state tournament last year with wins in both the quarterfinal and championship games.

"Pitching in the state championship's a pretty big deal," McDonald said. "So you get kind of used to it."

McDonald's batting average did drop this season — after hitting .500 (45-of-90) in 2006 and .516 (48-of-93) in 2007, he hit just .350 in 2008. But it's not likely that his skills declined, or that he had an off year. Opposing pitchers finally appeared to learn to stay away from the plate with him in the box.

"They had to," teammate Alex Pfeiffer said. "I don't think they had a choice after what he did the past couple seasons."

McDonald batted .350 (25-of-80) with a home run (a grand slam, against Moorefield), 19 RBIs, eight doubles and eight steals. With pitchers taking great pains to not get burned by him (while his brother Riley had a monster season one spot back at cleanup), McDonald reached base at a .495 clip.

"They were mixing pitches a lot," he said. "When I'd see a fastball, it was outside on the black. There was nothing down the middle or anything."

Despite his improvement on the hill, McDonald still thinks the hitter in him could out-do the pitcher in him.

"I see the ball better when a left-hander's throwing, I don't know why," he said, estimating (when pressed) that facing himself in a game, he'd go 3-for-4 with two singles and maybe a double — but no steals. "Unless he can hide it really, really good. But when it comes off from the left side, I can just watch it all the way through."

R Contact Craig Juer at cjuer@nvdaily.com

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