Everyone pitches in
Father’s proud as a Peacock of substitute starter
His son was 10 minutes away from replacing Dallas Keuchel for one night when Jerry Peacock suddenly stopped, bent over and unzipped a backpack.
“I have to put on my lucky shirt,” he said.
Jerry proudly held it up, all while holding onto a lucky baseball that Brad Peacock had just been throwing in the Astros’ bullpen.
The shirt was mostly white, heavily worn and wrinkled, and featured colored fish moving in a variety of directions.
I spent a few minutes Monday evening searching the 155 and 156 seating sections of Minute Maid Park, trying to find a man wearing the frayed personal charm. As Peacock unleashed his final warmup pitches before the Astros’ 1-0 victory against Detroit — a mitt popping; fans hovering above the railing (one in a home-white Keuchel jersey) and staring down at an unexpected spot starter — I became convinced that Jerry hadn’t made the trip.
For years, the retired police officer drove across the country, following his son’s highly unpredictable baseball career wherever life took it.
“You should have seen him follow me around in the minor leagues,” Peacock said. “He had a closed-in lawnmower trailer that he put an airconditioning unit in and a mattress. … I’d be like, ‘Dad, you could stay in my apartment.’ And he wouldn’t do it.”
Five seasons ago, Jerry paced Minute Maid’s aisles in his lucky shirt when Peacock was the No. 4 starter on the worst team in Astros history.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been a little bit nervous about a baseball game,” Jerry said on April 5, 2013, when Peacock made his first start for then-manager Bo Porter. “I’ll watch him the whole time. But I don’t want to be around people I know while I’m watching and moving around.”
Ritual completed
No one was moving in sections 155 and 156 Monday. And I was on the verge of giving up on trying to find Jerry — Peacock said Sunday that if his dad showed up, it would be a total surprise — when the final bullpen offering was fired.
I lost sight of the ball behind the wall and began to close my notebook as a mitt popped again. Then I found him. The ball was tossed above the railing and ended up in a man’s hands. I couldn’t see the face and the lucky shirt was still zipped inside a backpack. But that had to be Jerry, I thought, even thought it had been five years since I briefly spoke with him during the start of a season when the severely rebuilding Astros ended up losing a franchise-record 111 games.
It was. And 10 minutes before his son struck out Ian Kinsler, Alex Avila and Miguel Cabrera to begin the first inning of a fourgame series against the Tigers’ loaded lineup, the father of the 29-year-old righthander was buzzing more than the entire park.
“Any of his starts, I try to catch the ball,” said Jerry, who didn’t know his son was starting until Friday and had to attend the funeral of a “dear friend” Sunday. “I go home and mark it. I’ll put the stats on it from (Monday night). Hopefully good stats. But the stats are on all of them, whether good or bad.”
Good and bad. That’s been Peacock ever since he debuted with Washington on Sept. 6, 2011. He was the No. 36 prospect in the sport that year, according to Baseball America. He’s since been traded twice — Chris Carter, Jed Lowrie and Gio Gonzalez are forever attached to his name — has fought through major injuries, and is one of only four players currently on the best team in baseball who also played for the horrific 2013 Astros.
You know Jose Altuve, Marwin Gonzalez and Keuchel very well. Peacock, barely at all.
Starter, reliever, minor leaguer, long reliever, spot starter — he’s literally done it all. And when you ask about his career (six seasons, but only two with more than 12 games pitched), one of the most anonymous 2017 Astros opens up about as much as he ever does.
“Up and down, man,” Peacock said. “You know that. A lot of ups and a lot of downs.”
That was Keuchel’s one-start replacement the day before he struck out eight Tigers in 41⁄3 innings, only allowed one hit and walked off the mound with a 1-0 lead. It was also why reliever Tony Sipp and other Astros were quietly cheering for a teammate who was in the minors every year between 200716 and wasn’t supposed to make the opening-day roster of A.J. Hinch’s current team.
“The ones that had to grind — the ones that actually went through it — you kind of respect it and pull for those guys that had to get it the hard way,” Sipp said.
Effort appreciated
In the fifth, Nicholas Castellanos foul-tipped an 80-mph slider into Evan Gattis’ mitt for the first out of the inning, ending an at-bat that included a pair of two-seam fastballs that hit 90. Then Tyler Collins walked on six pitches, as Peacock reached 70 for the night.
Hinch walked up the dugout steps, crossed from red dirt to green grass, and slowly made his way to the mound. At 8:30 p.m., the pitcher who wasn’t supposed to start hadn’t allowed a run and received a standing ovation he’ll remember the rest of his life.
“I wanted to tell him I was proud of him. I wanted to say that, ‘Look, everything that we asked (Monday), you stepped up and did,’ ” said Hinch, consistently praising a pitcher who’s now struck out 30 in 202⁄3 innings and holds a team-low 0.87 ERA.
For Jerry, just seeing his son start a major-league game again was another real-life dream.
“I was waiting (near the dugout) when he came out, but he didn’t show up. He usually comes out 30 minutes before,” Jerry said of the pregame ritual. “I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I started to pack up. Then he came out. And I’ve got this traditional whistle I do. When I whistle, he goes looking. He’ll turn that head like a rooster, looking around until he finds me.”
Peacock’s bullpen ball was about to be tossed into loving hands again.
It was a perfect night to be a father with a lucky shirt.