Nate Taylor (No. 33) meanders through Chatham's high-five line after its victory over Wareham on June 16. Taylor threw 4.0 perfect innings and struck out a whopping 10 Gatemen to lead the Anglers' win. Photograph by Ella Tovey

Taylor’s father will always remember his next outing more, however. On June 25, Taylor got the ball in relief late against Cotuit. With the game knotted at 4-4 in the bottom of the seventh, he floated a hanging changeup belt-high on star Japanese power hitter Rintaro Sasaki — who throttled it for a two-run homer.

Lamont said Taylor no longer is one to get pent up with frustration on the bump. The Army Veteran disciplined Taylor into a stoic warrior in the heat of battle. On positive outcomes? Act like you’ve been there before. When adversity strikes? Don’t let them see your pain.

Taylor paced around the mound and chuckled after watching Sasaki’s blast fly over the right-field wall at Lowell Park. Soon enough, his smile flipped to a stone-cold stare; he knew he’d get another shot against Japan’s high-school home run record holder.

Two innings later, another clash of the titans ensued with the game on the line. Taylor had previously walked a pair of runners and forced a groundout, and Sasaki stood at the plate with guys on second and third in a 6-6 ballgame.

After Taylor missed a first-pitch fastball high, he blazed three straight inside heaters past Sasaki, inducing two fouls and a whiffed strike three. Once he escaped the jam by K’ing Cotuit’s Case Sanderson, Taylor’s calm strut off the mound and into the dugout said it all.

Those are the moments he thirsts for.

“I think you’re shaped by your experiences. To want the ball in those types of games, some folks naturally have those things,” Lamont said of Taylor, who salvaged Chatham’s tie against Cotuit that day with a 4.1-inning, four-strikeout outing.

Taylor’s mound presence began to form as a kid on the diamond with his dad. Lamont said when Taylor was 8, he would hit against him so he could practice his pitching. He knew how children around that age often got upset when they’d mistakenly hit someone with a pitch, and wanted to ensure Taylor kept a neutral body language.

Lamont wasn’t going to let Taylor be the kid who cries on the mound — he stepped into some of Taylor’s pitches to see how he’d react. When Taylor reacted visibly poorly, Lamont used it as a teaching moment. To this day, if Lamont sees Taylor jumping around in frustration after a mistake pitch, he talks to him about controlling himself.

“You gotta be convincing of what you’re doing,” Lamont tells his son.
 

Nate Taylor fist bumps Chatham pitching coach Jay Powell amid the Anglers' July 3 contest against Orleans. Taylor tallied four Ks across 3.0 innings in his start versus the Firebirds. Photograph by Ella Tovey

 

That also means mistakes must be followed by accountability, a lesson Taylor learned the hard way.

As a 13-year-old in Western Pennsylvania, Taylor packed into a car with Lamont, who drove the two from baseball to basketball practice. Lamont, a coach on Taylor’s team, prided himself on refusing to give his son preferential treatment. So, when Taylor revealed he’d forgotten his left basketball shoe at home, Lamont wasn’t there to hold his hand.

“You can call your mother, coordinate with her to get your stuff, but you’re not practicing on my court,” Lamont told him. “If you want to make this team, you’ll run the entire time we practice. If you stop, you’re off the team.”

Taylor obliged. He ran nonstop for the full hour and a half of practice, all while missing a shoe.

Lamont said it wasn’t a punishment that Tracy was necessarily happy about, but it showed their son what it takes to grind through a strenuous situation.

After the Taylors moved to Flowery Branch, Georgia, prior to his freshman year of high school, Taylor walked into a loaded Wolves’ roster filled with future D-I pitching talents like Dylan Lesko, Jackson Gaspard and Riley Stanford — all of whom were highly-touted upperclassmen. As for Taylor, he came into Buford with a high 70s fastball and only a slider to back it up. He figured he wouldn’t sniff varsity throughout the 2021 season.

Taylor said he didn’t experience the same fortune as others in his area, who tossed 90 MPH heaters at the age of 14. Needing to catch up to his teammates heading into his sophomore year, Taylor became a gym rat.

Once Buford’s preseason practices ended, Taylor went to Peak Strength and Fitness about 10 minutes from the school and worked out with his best friend and teammate Cannon Goldin, a class of 2025 outfield recruit committed to Ole Miss.

The two held competitions around beating each other’s personal records on squats, cleans, bench presses and more. Taylor says he used to clean 315 pounds in high school, but admitted that Goldin just recently passed his PR. Though that’s an exercise Taylor now avoids — it’s bad for his shoulder — the added strength helped his velocity flourish throughout his time at Buford, pushing his fastball into the mid-to-high 80s as a sophomore before entering the 90s in his upperclassmen years.

“(Goldin and I) were going to be as competitive as we possibly could against each other, and that carried over from the weight room into everything that we did,” Taylor said.

Buford head coach Stuart Chester said the program put significant stock into Taylor heading into his second season. Despite lacking velocity and only sporting a two-pitch mix, Chester felt he was ready to join the Wolves’ pitching staff, as he thought Taylor’s command stood above the rest of the team.

“A lot of high school guys say, ‘I’ve got five pitches and I can’t command any of them,’” Chester said. “Well, (Taylor) had two he could command just about any time, any place he wanted to.”

That 2022 season, Taylor emerged as Buford’s closer. He said he emulated older teammates such as Lesko, who taught him to work around his mediocre fastball velocity by trusting his breaking stuff to get more advanced hitters out. It was a competition level he hadn’t faced before, but Taylor didn’t overthink it. He focused on getting outs by any means necessary rather than selling out for strikeouts.

By all accounts, he impressed.

“He’d just be a bulldog up there, and everybody’s like, ‘Man, who’s this kid?’” Goldin said of Taylor.
 

Nate Taylor posted a 1.08 ERA at Georgia as a freshman this spring before coming to Chatham. He entered the transfer portal on June 27. Photograph by Ella Tovey

Chester’s trust in Taylor grew to the point where he was the choice to replace an injured Lesko in Game 3 of the Elite 8 in the 2022 Georgia Class 6A Playoffs.

Buford was on the road against Houston County, a team led by D-I stars in Gage Harrelson and Drew Burress. Taylor’s first-ever start for the Wolves occurred in Houston County’s stadium dubbed, “The Garden,” a raucous environment where fans piled onto trucks in the outfield of the overflowing ballpark, hoping to catch a glimpse of the action.

“I’d never pitched in anything remotely close to that before,” Taylor said.

“I saw pictures of it, and I’m like, ‘He’s starting this game? What is going on?’” Lamont recalled.

Nearly every soul in the stadium was viciously rooting against Taylor, especially with Burress needing one more RBI to break the Georgia high-school single-season record.

Taylor trusted his preparation, silenced the noise and mowed down Houston County’s lineup in a statement performance. He tossed 4.0 innings of one-run ball, racking up five strikeouts and earning the win in Buford’s 11-1 triumph. Taylor faced Burress with the bases loaded in the third inning, as the home crowd stood up and clapped, cheering on Burress to drive in the record-breaking run. But Taylor baited Burress with a high fastball, inducing an infield popout to spoil the outfielder’s shot at history.

“I mean, it’s packed, it’s hostile, and as a sophomore out there throwing like he did, it was unbelievable,” Chester said of Taylor’s debut start.

That season, Taylor received an offer from Georgia Tech and initially committed to the Yellow Jackets. His notoriety was growing, so much so that a Major League Baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves handed Lamont his card after encountering Taylor’s father at a Buford game.

And once his pitch arsenal took full shape, there wasn’t much stopping Taylor. He grew into a consistent starter in the Wolves’ rotation and became one of the best players in the state before flipping his commitment to Georgia in 2023.

“Mentally, physically, he just exploded,” Chester said of Taylor.

Before his junior year, Taylor added immense velocity to his fastball and slider, as well as mastering a changeup: the pitch his former catcher, Sam Humphrey, calls the key to his success. Taylor has massive hands — ones that put his father’s to shame, much to Lamont’s chagrin — allowing him to fasten a powerful grip on the pitch. Currently, Taylor says his changeup is the “best it’s ever been.”

Implementing something with as much movement and velocity drop as Taylor’s changeup gives him a go-to pitch. Pair that with an occasional two-seamer and a cutter, and Taylor can attack from any angle, at any speed.

“I hit left-handed, and his arm-side movement pitches were just crazy. Changeup and two-seam would blow you away. Like, you would think it’s the same pitch,” Humphrey said. “And then with righties, he always gets with the front-door slider. He was really, really fun to catch. Not fun to hit, that’s for sure.”

His senior year — in which he led Buford to a 2024 state quarterfinals appearance — Taylor posted a scintillating 1.95 ERA with a 9-2 record. His top performance came in the opening round of the state playoffs versus Brookwood High School, a game where he punched out 13 batters across six shutout frames to spur a Buford victory.

“(Taylor) had one of the best years I’ve seen out of a high school pitcher,” Goldin said. “He absolutely dominated every game he played in. It was like, ‘OK, Nate’s on the mound. We’re going to win.’”

Taylor’s velocity had been down in his previous appearances heading into that game, he said. But he erased those struggles and dug deep for what could’ve been his final game at Buford.

He felt it was a culmination of what he’d learned in his time with the program — by putting past failures behind him, he only got stronger.

“Whatever level I’m at, I know I just have to attack hitters,” Taylor said. “The next pitch is the only pitch that matters. Doesn’t matter if you punch the guy out or give up a bomb over the trees. And learning that throughout the year and finally just letting go and playing like that against Brookwood, it just showed a lot of growth in me.”

Heading to Georgia, however, unintentionally stunted his growth. Taylor said he learned a lot about himself while playing under head coach Wes Johnson’s program, particularly how to effectively sequence his pitches. He just didn’t get the ball.

But those close to him know that whichever program gives Taylor the opportunity he desires is primed to reap the benefits.

“I don’t think he has any limitations,” Chester said. “I kept wanting Nate to throw more this past year, but again, I understand they have plans. But I just see him growing as a collegiate pitcher and take it to the next level after a year or two.”