Q: You’re from St. Louis. Is that still home for you?
A: Yes, St. Louis is still home. Hopefully will always be home. I come from a big family, I’m one of four boys. I’m the youngest. Real close family. My mom’s got a large family, she’s one of eight siblings. Aunts and uncles, everyone grew up really close. It was a great way to be raised, a great way to come up, and hopefully I want to do that for my kids and my nieces and nephews someday.
Q: Was soccer your first love?
A: I wouldn’t say my first love, but probably my first true talent. I played soccer pretty much my whole life. Baseball as well, but soccer was nine months out of the year and baseball was only three. Once I got to high school, I had to make a decision. Even though I was much better at soccer, I chose to go with baseball.
Q: Why?
A: My heart was in baseball. I probably could have gone further with soccer for where I was at that age. But my heart was in baseball. To me, there was nothing greater than squaring up a baseball with a bat.
Q: When did you know you could have a future in baseball?
A: A future in baseball wasn’t possible for me until probably my senior year in college. I was always kind of that fringe guy that had to work really hard to get what he had. I never was just gifted with a 95-mile-an-hour arm, or any crazy talent. I could hit pretty well, but not enough to stay in that position. It didn’t click until my senior year of college. I got hooked up with the right coach. He taught me enough about pitching. He’s a former first rounder with the (Florida) Marlins from ’97, Aaron Akin. He’s my base, my foundation, for a lot of stuff I do now.
Q: So you’ve always been kind of a late bloomer, huh?
A: For the way I’ve been in baseball, it seems like that’s been my whole path the whole entire time. It’s either late, or you gotta work extra hard to get to that point. There were points in my career where my buddies were talking to me, saying, “Even if you don’t ever make it to the big leagues, you’ve already made it,” you know, in their eyes. So as much as it would have been a disappointment to not be here today, I like the path I took. I believe I can appreciate it, not necessarily more, but it’s a different kind of appreciation than someone who had a little bit different talents.
Q: You’re 27. You’ve spent about five seasons in the minors. So when you get that call, that you’re going to go the Padres, what are you thinking?
A: I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t. I thought a terrible joke was being played by the pitching coach when he called and told me. And then when I realized I was on speaker phone with the other manager and everything and it all kind of sunk in, the heart starts beating. The cool thing is I had family on the other line. So when I got off the phone with him and I clicked over, and I started talking to family, that’s when the emotions set in and you know, you get a little choked up. It was cool.
Q: Your first game, your Major League debut, you struck out the side. You nailed it. Were you nervous?
A: That’s the odd thing. In Double-A, my pitching coach was Tim Worrell, and we had talked a lot about abilities. A lot of guys that can’t get to the big leagues, it’s because of a mental breakdown of some kind. The talent, the physical skills are there, it’s just that the mentality is not right. And all year, I’ve been working on keeping the same approach, not letting the game speed up on you, and not letting the moment be too big for what you can do. Don’t try to overdo yourself. So warming up in the bullpen, I was telling myself this is any other day, any other ballgame, just go out and make pitches. But I have to it, when I broke the left corner wall, and I stepped onto the field and took those few steps, and the lights from the stadium hit me — It was tough to control emotion there.
Q: Did you have a bunch of texts and e-mails and phone calls when you were done?
A: 41 texts, 17 calls, seven e-mails and a bunch of voice mails. I’m still catching up.
Q: Do you get advice from the other guys in the bullpen?
A: I’ve talked to Luke Gregerson. He said, “Man, just go out and throw strikes.” It’s true. You throw balls, no one has to swing. Go out and throw strikes, make them at least swing the bat and put the ball in play, then you got a chance.
Q: If you weren’t a professional baseball player, what would you be?
A: A firefighter.
