If the triple is considered one of the most exciting plays in baseball, Nazareth graduate Jaden Fauske is becoming one of the most exciting players in Kannapolis Cannon Ballers history.
On July 2, he hit his eighth triple of the season for the Single-A farm club in the Chicago White Six organization. That’s a franchise record for the Cannon Ballers, who have been around since 1995.
He is exciting in other areas as well.
The left-handed, leadoff-hitting left fielder was hitting .251 with four home runs, 26 RBIs and 26 stolen bases for the North Carolina team.
The 2025 Southwest Regional Player of the Year was just playing high-school ball last year, when the Sox took him in the second round of the MLB Draft.
After a slow start in his first pro season, Fauske has been hitting well of late and is making a lot of waves.
“The biggest thing is adjusting to play every day,” Fauske said in a recent video conference. “It’s just different. In high school, you play, at most, maybe three times a week.
“Now you are looking at playing five or six times a week. A lot of it comes down to taking care of your body. It is a grind and it’s a lot.”
Toward the end of June, he had a six-game stretch that included four multi-hit games.
One memorable game was a three-hit performance — including a ninth-inning home run — on June 21 in a 14-6 road win over the Fayetteville Woodpeckers.
“I had a solid two or three weeks or so,” he said. “I made adjustments with my swing. But mostly, it’s game-planning and how I go into games and how I got into at-bats. We have a specific plan against pitchers.
“We had one of our hitting coordinators in town and we really hammered it with our approach and thought processes in at-bats against certain guys and what kind of stuff they have. I think I really carried it into my last stretch of games and it’s really helped me.”
Now that he has some good habits at the plate, Fauske also has picked up some help learning to play the outfield. He said he didn’t play outfield until his senior season at Nazareth.
“I’ve gotten better with my jumps off the bat,” he said. “We work with the first five steps and we do a lot of drill work with that.”
His goal is to eventually get promoted to the parent club but also realizes that it won’t come overnight.
“Playing for a hometown team is pretty cool to think about,” Fauske said. “It’s something I look forward to and I understand there is a long way to go and a lot of work to be done.”