Project Durham Bulls #5

Nathan Karns - 2014 Durham Bulls 

Background- 

Karns originally actually went to college at NC State, but transferred to Texas Tech after his freshman year to be closer to his mother who was sick at the time.  He started out his professional career with he Nationals and was traded to the Rays for Jose Lobaton and Felipe Rivero.  His first season in the Rays organization landed the hard throwing starter in Triple A with the Bulls.  In 27 starts Karns had an ERA of 5.08, but averaged more than a strikeout per inning (153 in 145.1).  The Rays called him up at the end of the 2014 season where he made two starts.  He stayed with the Rays in 2015 before he was in the Brad Miller trade sending him to the Mariners for the 2016 season.  This past season in Seattle Karns had an ERA north of 5, but again averaged more than a strikeout per inning.  

Card-

I actually have a another Karns autograph from one of those cool Donruss college sets from aways back.  It's a pretty sweet card from his time at Texas Tech.  I didn't really need another Karns autograph I guess, but this card was nearly free on Ebay.  I was actually trying to pick up a few cards for my Bowman Autographs set project, the seller also had this card up for auction.  I know that the autographs in the base Topps products have high print runs and the whatnot, but I guess it's nice to get a Karns autograph in a Major League uni.  

Durham Bulls Player and Honorary Wolfpacker

One of the more tantalizing prospects on the Durham Bulls this year was hard throwing right hander Nathan Karns.  He came over to the Rays this past off season in exchange for my favorite Lobaton and was dispatched to Triple A after spring training to work on his command.  At times this year Karns looked brilliant pitching for the Bulls.  Hard throwing, lots of strikeouts, swings and misses...Things you like to see out of a pitcher.

I can even tell you that Karns made it all the way up to the Rays this year, a cup of coffee in September, and pitched one really awesome game in his Rays debut against the Blue Jays.  Seven scoreless innings with eight strikeouts sounds great.  Looks good too.  

This all sounds like a bunch of sunshine and roses, but really it's not.  That top part sounded good, and I did not even mention the fact that he struck out 153 batters in 145 innings.  No, Mr. Karns is still very much a work in progress.  For starters he had an ERA of 5.08, led the International League in walks with 62, and allowed 16 home runs.  There were plenty of interesting games along the way.  

For example, in his season debut against the Gwinnett Braves Karns pitched 2.2 innings and only allowed 3 hits.  He gave up 6 runs.  How does one do that?  By walking 7 batters and striking out only one.  I am going to go out on a limb and say that Karns ends up back with the Durham Bulls again next year.  Just a hunch.  

Karns is one Durham Bulls regular I have not really touched card wise.  I decided to improve that a little bit this off season with a little bit of work on finding and adding his cards to my collection.  He's got some decent cards floating around, but not as many as I thought.  Up first is a cool Donruss Elite card featuring Karns as a Texas Tech Red Raider.  

This is a pretty nice card of Karns throwing a pitch, wearing his Red Raiders uni.  Karns was actually originally in school at NC State, pitched as a freshman, and then transferred home to pitch at Texas Tech after his mother suffered a stroke.  Karns went 3-2 with the Pack and posted an ERA of 2.67 with 24 K's in 30 innings of work.  The team made the NCAA's as an at-large team.  Does that make him a sort of honorary Wolfpacker?  I vote yes.  Looking forward to adding more Karns cards.  Go State! GTHC!