Nate Buttenfield stands tall on the rubber, rocks back and unleashes a fastball that cuts through the spring air like a missile.

Thwap!

He does it again.

Thwap!

And again.

Thwap!

Sure, Buttenfield, who has pitched for the Saxonburg Eagle County team for three seasons and who was a first-year head coach at NorthHills HighSchool this spring, has done that before.

At age 30, he's logged a lot of innings on his right arm.

But this year, things are a little different.

That thwap is louder. Those fastballs pouring from his angular 6-foot-5 body are zooming in at 95 mph — 5 mph faster than last year at this time. His command of the strike zone has been uncanny.

And he has gotten noticed.

"You could tell he was throwing quite a bit harder," said Saxonburg manager Dan Cunningham.

It started like most stories that make Hollywood script writers drool.

Buttenfield had a feeling he was throwing with greater velocity and better command than at any point in his life, but he needed some coaxing.

That came from his Saxonburg teammates after he threw a no-hitter against Butler in late May.

No one could touch him. He struck out 14. Only seven batters made contact and not one batted ball left the infield.

So, Buttenfield decided to drive to a pro tryout camp in the outskirts of Philadelphia.

While there, he amazed scouts with his live arm. He routinely hit 95 mph on the gun and had as many as 10 teams lining up to talk to him.

"When I was hitting 95 mph," Buttenfield said, "that's when I was a little surprised."

So were the scouts.

They wondered where he came from. All they knew about Buttenfield was what everyone else knew.

He graduated from Indiana (Pa.) University in 1999, pitched for the Canton (Ohio) Crocodiles in the Frontier League with shaky results that included an unsightly 7.07 ERA before slipping into obscurity.

Buttenfield put all that behind him when the ball was dropped into his hand and the scouts told him to let it rip.

It was a liberating feeling for Buttenfield.

"Back in the day, I would get nervous and anxious, but it was kind of the opposite (at the tryout)," he said. "I was relaxed and confident."

Buttenfield chalks up his newfound fireball and pinpoint control to his work with his North Hills baseball team.

He put his players on a conditioning program and participated with them.

It strengthened his arm and honed his mechanics.

Buttenfield, who lives in Gibsonia, has been dominating every time he's pitched this year.

He has given up four hits in 13 innings while striking out 22 for Saxonburg. He hasn't walked a batter.

Now, Buttenfield is in wait mode. Every time the phone rings, he wonders if it is the Orioles or the Dodgers or the Indians — not the team from North Hills, but the one from Cleveland.

"It's exciting," Buttenfield said. "I never really gave up on it. I kind of always felt like I could do it. I just personally decided I wanted to try it this summer and try to get a look."

The number 95 — his velocity on the radar gun — thrilled scouts. The number 30 — his age — left them a bit more subdued.

Buttenfield said if he was 21 or 22, he'd be pitching in a minor league game right now. But he's not.

He's still confident, though, he will get his chance.

Buttenfield believes life — at least his pro baseball one — begins at 30.

"That's the feeling I get," he said. "There were so many scouts so extremely eager to talk to me. They told me they had to talk to their superiors before they could do anything, but they would get back to me. I believe any day now it will happen."