Tagged: rick porcello
NO JOKING MATTER
Detroit Tigers pitcher Rick Porcello (pictured left) can testify on the life-altering moment that is the Call-Up.
Sitting before an empty locker with a couple months of spring training firmly behind him, Porcello still couldn’t believe what was happening.
“It doesn’t even feel like I’m packing for Detroit yet,” he admitted to an MLB.com writer at the time. “I think it’ll definitely set in the first game, kind of get to see the atmosphere, that sort of thing.”
RELATED LINKS:
>>> Video: Porcello’s Strong Start
Heading into camp, the 6’5”, 200-lb. right hander knew he had a chance to make it to the majors with little to no professional experience. There was that slim chance.
Until there wasn’t or so he thought.
Having made the decision to keep Porcello, and fellow rookie hurler Ryan Perry (pictured above right), Tigers skipper Jim Leyland decided to have some fun when he pulled the pair into his office to give them the good news.
“I was just trying to keep a straight face and not look like I was too nervous or anything like that,” Porcello said. “When he said, ‘We’re going to send you down to the Minors,’ I kind of just [dropped my head].
“It wasn’t like it was a far-fetched thing. I knew obviously that was a strong possibility coming into camp, so it wasn’t a big surprise for me. And then, I guess when you make it to the last cut in camp, you hope you’ve got a pretty good shot to make the team.”
When Leyland had enough fun, he admitted it was in the spirit of April Fools and that the duo had achieved their life-long aspiration of making it to the majors.
“I told [Leyland] that was a sick joke,” said Perry.
Fast forward to present day and the pair are flying high. Porcello has started two games in the majors, posting a 1-1 record and a 3.75 ERA. Perry, working from the bullpen, has appeared in six contests allowing just one earned run and fanning five.
With the early success of the pair of rookies, Porcello, Perry and the Tigers couldn’t be happier with Detroit’s choice of putting a Tigers cap on each man’s head instead one representing Toledo.
And that’s no joke.
** Quotes courtesy of MLB.com **
Tip your cap to the next Major Leaguers
Nothing says “baseball season” quite like that daily scan of the box scores, whether it’s with an old-fashioned newspaper over a cup of hot coffee in the morning or, with the new frontier upon us, on a computer screen in front of us at any time of day or night.
We look for the familiar names, our favorite players, the superstars and the future Hall of Famers.
And then there are the names that maybe not be familiar, players who haven’t become superstars or our personal favorites . . . yet, anyway.
The rookies. The guys who, each week and sometimes each day, are realizing their lives’ dreams as they make their Major League debuts.
Some come up for that famous “cup of coffee” and are back down in the Minors within days.
Others, well . . . others become the Evan Longorias and Geovany Sotos, the Ryan Brauns and Dustin Pedroias of the game.
And the truth is, sometimes you can’t be totally sure who is who right from the get-go (okay, so we all knew about Evan Longoria all along).
Over the course of the 2009 season, dozens upon dozens of players will be called up to the big leagues for the first time.
Odds are you’ll see players like catcher Matt Wieters (top picture) say au revoir to the shinguards of his Norfolk Tides in exchange for the Baltimore Orioles equipment, outfielder Andrew McCutchen (right) trade in his Indianapolis Indians uniforms for the black and gold of the Pittsburgh Pirates, outfielder Austin Jackson pack away his Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees gear for the pinstripes of the Bombers . . . well, you get the idea.
We’ll also be tracking prospects like Jason Heyward (Braves), Rick Porcello (Tigers) and Colby Rasmus. And as they likely trade in their Minor League caps to proudly don the cap of their parent club, who better to take you along the way than New Era Caps, the official on-field cap of Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball?
As always, you can keep an eye on the prospects in the game at the MLBlogs of MLB.com’s two Minor League correspondents, via Lisa Winston’s Got Milb? and Jonathan Mayo’s B3: Big, Bald and Beautiful, as well as this landing page of prospect coverage.
You can also get to know many of the players who will be making their debuts, sooner or later, through the ongoing creation of 30 prospect MLBlogs, one for every organization including yours.
In the meantime, as we wait for the season to finally get under way, here’s a question for you all to ponder:
Whose Major League debut are YOU most eagerly anticipating?
New Era Presents the Call-Up 