Skaggs close to Corbin’s heart
When he stood on the mound in the bullpen for the last of his warmup tosses and absorbed the moment of silence for Tyler Skaggs, Patrick Corbin did so wearing Skaggs’ No. 45 on his back.
When he went to the mound to make his start Tuesday night for the Nationals, Corbin bent over, reached with his left hand and scratched that number, 45, into the dirt on the back side, where it might last the whole game against the Marlins.
“He’s just,” Corbin said later, each word a struggle, “all I’m thinking about.”
In 2009, Skaggs, a lefty from California, was taken with the 40th pick in Major League Baseball’s draft by the Angels, exactly 40 picks before the Angels selected Patrick Corbin, a lefty from New York via community college in Florida. In 2010, those two pitchers — by then, friends — were traded together to Arizona. In April 2012, Corbin made his big league debut. In August 2012, Skaggs — by then, an even better buddy — followed.
On Monday, Skaggs, 27, was found unresponsive at the Angels’ team hotel in Arlington, Texas.
On Tuesday, Corbin pitched.
“When you have a loss, you want to keep things as normal as you can and just try to go out there and do what you have to do,” Corbin said.
And so, half a country away, with his friend inexplicably dead, 7:05 p.m. arrived, and Corbin threw his first pitch.
“It’s hard,” said Gerardo Parra, a National now, but once an Arizona teammate of both Skaggs and Corbin. “But Corbin, he’s a professional guy.”