Former Oregon closer Jimmie Sherfy was promoted on Wednesday from the Hillsboro Hops of the Class-A short season Northwest league to the Class-A South Bend Silver Hawks after easing through his first professional stint in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. The jump from a short season Class-A team to an organization’s standard Class-A team signifies a young prospects ability to adjust quickly to the skill and pace of professional baseball. The standard Class-A level of the minor leagues is full of players that have developed into future potential major league baseball players. While acting as the Hops’ closer, Sherfy converted all five of his save opportunities and recorded 17 strikeouts in only nine innings pitched. He only allowed three hits during his tenure in Hillsboro.

At Oregon, Sherfy became as sure a closer as Ducks coach George Horton could have asked for. In his last two years for Oregon, Sherfy combined for 40 saves, a 7-3 record and 148 strikeouts in 101.1 innings pitched. Despite his remarkable stats and numerous accolades, Sherfy fell in July’s MLB draft. Sherfy saw 299 players get taken ahead of him before he was finally selected in the 10th round by the Diamondbacks.

The Diamondbacks, and general manager Kevin Towers, are already getting a hearty return on their $100,000 investment of Sherfy. Being promoted after only nine innings pitched for a minor league squad shows that the Diamondbacks know Sherfy no longer needed grooming against lower Class-A competition.

Sherfy is already making an impact on his new team. After being called up, Sherfy was immediately thrown into the fire to show his new team and manager his capabilities as a reliever. In his first inning pitched for South Bend, Sherfy allowed a lone hit while striking out two in a 10-9 loss against the Lake County Captains.

Fellow Hops pitchers Braden Shipley, Aaron Blair and Daniel Gibson joined Sherfy on the climb up the Diamondbacks’ minor league tree to Class-A South Bend.