This week in baseball featured two debuts by suburban natives
This was a week when dreams came true for a pair of suburban natives making their MLB debuts.
Hersey's Brett Harris got the call to play third base for the Oakland Athletics on May 3 and has already hit 3 home runs.
Then Willowbrook grad Chris Roycroft had an enthusiastic cheering section on hand when he took the mound in St. Louis on Tuesday and pitched the ninth inning against the Mets.
Harris was a seventh-round draft pick of the A's in 2021 out of Gonzaga. He's rated the team's No. 9 prospect by MLB Pipeline, and many see him settling in long term at third base.
He went 0-for-3 in his debut, then hit a pair of home runs against Miami the following day, becoming the rare player whose first 2 career hits are both homers. He homered again against Texas on Wednesday.
“Obviously, it’s something you dream of since you’re playing in the backyard,” Harris said after his debut, according to mlb.com. “It’s pretty surreal. I think once I get back to the hotel I’ll try to wrap my head around it.”
Harris, 25, became the first Hersey product to play in the major leagues. He started college at the University of Houston, then played at a junior college before transferring to Gonzaga.
“I have to remind myself it’s the same game,” Harris said. “Pitcher's same distance away. Bases are still the same distance away. It's just a bigger stadium. I don’t know how to put it into words, but I’m very excited to be here.”
The 6-foot-8 Roycroft told reporters in St. Louis he was primarily a basketball player when he started college at Division III Aurora University. A quick check of the stats show him playing just one season in 2015-16 and scoring 9 points.
Roycroft, 26, turned into a solid starter for Aurora's baseball squad, but he wasn't drafted when he finished school in 2019. After the pandemic he pitched for the independent Joliet Slammers in 2021 and 2022. He was signed by the Cardinals and sent to Single A, then quickly worked his way up the ladder, posting a 1.38 ERA at Triple A Memphis this year.
With a group of roughly 20 friends and family cheering him on, Roycroft struck out the first batter he faced, Francisco Lindor.
“I've been waiting for that moment for a long time,” Roycroft told Bally Sports Midwest. “A lot of hard work going into there. Lindor's a great guy, a great player. To have that under my belt is really awesome.”
Reality struck pretty quickly, as Pete Alonso followed with a home run. But Roycroft got another strikeout and finished the inning with just 1 run scored. His sinker, which averaged 97.3 mph Tuesday, is a pitch that could keep him in the big leagues.
“It's surreal, very surreal,” Roycroft said. “I couldn't fall asleep (the night before), I was so amped up. I just kept pinching myself thinking it was a dream. Then you wake up this morning and you're like, 'All right, it's real, now we go.'”
Roycroft is the first Aurora product to reach the majors and fifth from Willowbrook. The most notable Willowbrook big-leaguers were pitcher Dan Schatzeder and outfielder Jody Gerut.
Contreras crusher:
Earlier in that Mets-Cardinals game Tuesday, former Cubs catcher Willson Contreras suffered a broken left forearm when he was struck by a swing from J.D. Martinez. St. Louis reportedly asked Contreras to set up closer to the plate in an effort to coax more called strikes. Needless to say, that strategy has a downside.
Contreras was off to a great start at the plate, ranking 10th in MLB in OPS at .949. There's plenty of reason to second-guess the Cubs' insistence on not re-signing Contreras a year ago. The Cubs' catching platoon has managed a .197 batting average and an OPS of .542 this season, which ranks 13th in the National League.
The hope in St. Louis is Contreras can return after the all-star break. If that's the case, he'll miss three of the four series between the Cubs and Cardinals this season.
Skenes awaits Cubs:
The Cubs will be in the national spotlight Saturday when they become the first MLB team to take hacks against Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes, the No. 1 pick of the 2023 draft and top-ranked pitching prospect in the game.
Here's a quick recap of his seven starts in Triple A this season: Skenes' fastball averaged 99.9 mph and he threw 98 pitches above 100 mph. The former LSU star struck out 45 batters in 27⅓ innings, with a 0.99 ERA.
Can the Cubs catch up to the Skenes' heat? One bad sign is they couldn't touch San Diego's Dylan Cease on Wednesday at Wrigley, and he reached 99.3 mph with his four-seam fastball.
Earlier this year, the Cubs scored 5 runs in less than two innings against the Dodgers' Bobby Miller. The McHenry native is one of the harder throwers among starting pitchers.
A dive into StatCast to find the fastest pitch resulting in a Cubs home run this season turned up Michael Busch, who sent a 99.0 mph four-seam by Seattle's Ryne Stanek into the seats on April 12.
Dansby Swanson connected last week on a 98.6 mph sinker from Milwaukee's Tyago Vieira, and he also homered on one of Miller's 97.9 mph four-seamers.
The Cubs' offense has been struggling, but the Pirates are worse, batting .174 as a team in May. Assuming good health, Skenes will likely make his second MLB start next Thursday at Wrigley Field.
Twitter: @McGrawDHSports