Bunn cooking up emerging career

Potomac Nationals pitcher Greg Bunn possesses a low 90s fastball, a good curveball and a pair of pitches (a two-seam fastball and changeup) still in the developmental stages.

What separates him from the dozens of other pitchers in Class A with similar arsenals and makes him one of the Washington organization’s rising prospects? It’s his superior grasp of the mental side of pitching. Scouts say he has “great makeup.”

“I hope that doesn’t mean Revlon or anything like that,” Bunn said as a joke. “I don’t know. I’d say it means how you present yourself on the mound and how you go about your business.”

Bunn majored in both mathematics and physics at East Carolina. He wanted to attend N.C. State — specifically its engineering department. However, the Pirates became a consistent postseason participant in the late 1990s, making it too good a situation to pass up.

During his sophomore year, Bunn’s father suffered a heart attack, and his mother hired a nurse to help take care of him while she worked. Bunn came up with an idea to help pay for the portion of the expenses not covered by disability insurance — he opened his own hot dog stand at the Lowe’s home improvement store in Greenville, N.C.

“I opened it up mainly just to help her out and help pay for the extra week without her struggling a bit,” Bunn said. “That’s how it started, but it’s doing pretty good I guess.”

And so Bun-Bun’s hot dog stand was born. The name — Bunn’s misspelled nickname — came from his freshman year roommate. Bunn’s sister is in charge of the stand now that he has another job during the summer.

“It’s just one of those little New York-style push carts — a little stainless steel push cart thing,” Bunn said. “It cost $5,000 to help it get going, but it does a good job. [My sister] is doing a really good job. She’s actually [majoring] in hospitality management. She’s trying to be a manager of a restaurant one day, so she’s getting good practice at it. She’s doing well.

“Hopefully, she’ll be an owner of a restaurant some day, and I’ll be able to help her out with that.”

The Expos selected Bunn in the fifth round of the 2004 draft. Nationals assistant scouting director Brian Parker described Bunn as an advanced college pitcher and said drafting him was a priority.

Bunn was a bit distracted on draft day. He was slated to start for East Carolina against UNC Wilmington for a spot in the NCAA superegionals.

“It wasn’t that big of a thing because if I had gone in the 11th or 12th round, I’d probably be in college this year because I love college baseball that much,” Bunn said. “I kind of pushed it to the back of my mind because I had waited for the day to pitch that particular game my whole life up to that point, and it was pretty exciting.”

Bunn struck out 11 batters in eight shutout innings to lead the Pirates to a 7-0 victory. He gave his cell phone to his mom in case he was drafted during the game.

“I got on the bus [afterward] and got the phone call, which was pretty exciting,” Bunn said. “I didn’t expect to go that high. I didn’t know how fast the rounds would go. I didn’t think I’d get the call until later in the day.”

Bunn experienced some arm soreness in spring training this year, so he spent a few weeks at extended spring training in Viera, Fla. After a slow start at Class A Savannah, he yielded two runs or less in six straight starts and received a promotion to Potomac. For the season, he has a 3.45 ERA and 69 strikeouts in 701/3 innings.

In two starts for the Nationals, he has allowed two runs in 12 innings, but he walked a season-high six batters Thursday in his most recent start.

“I’ve got to get my tempo down,” Bunn said. “[Thursday] night I was all over the place. I was too fast one time and too slow the next. When you’re like that, you can’t control where the ball is going as well. I just started throwing a two-seamer [fastball] and a changeup this year. I had a changeup a little bit last year, but it’s helped me get some outs when I get behind in the count.”

Farm notes — Class AA Harrisburg will have four representatives at the Eastern League All-Star Game tomorrow in Portland, Maine. Relief pitcher Saul Rivera and outfielder Dee Haynes were selected through fan voting, while catcher John Wilson and infielder Edgar Gonzalez were added to the Southern Division roster. …

Darrell Rasner, the top starting pitching prospect on the Senators’ roster, was placed on the disabled list after taking a line drive off his arm. He was replaced on the roster by Armando Galarraga, whose final appearance in a Potomac uniform came at the Carolina-California League All-Star Game on June28. …

Clint Everts struck out four in a season-long three innings for the Gulf Coast Nationals on Friday. Everts, who was making his third appearance of the year, underwent Tommy John surgery during the offseason.