Bethel’s Meis settles in

Justin Meis had just a few weeks off from baseball this summer. The Bethel Park native said he missed the game, even if the break was short. That’s a little odd, considering those two weeks contained what may end up being one of the most memorable events of his life.

In the 2021 MLB draft, Meis’ hometown Pirates, the team he grew up watching and rooting for, selected him in the 10th round.

He’s not sure how many texts, calls and direct messages he got from family, friends and acquaintances, but it was a lot. He estimates he has been to PNC Park about 40 or 50 times over his life, making an attempt to go a few times every year. The fact that he now has a direct path to playing on that field is cause enough for celebration.

Even so, he was in a state of delirium.

“Obviously it was going out on social media and everything, and a bunch of people were calling me, but even still, probably four or five days after, it didn’t really set in that I was with the Pirates,” Meis said this week. “It was a crazy couple of days and, like I said, it definitely took a while to set in that it was with the hometown Pirates.”

This after playing his redshirt junior season with Eastern Michigan this spring, then moving to the Cape Cod League, pitching for the Cotuit Kettleers.

That, he says, is where he really started to believe that being drafted and competing for a spot on a major league roster was a real possibility. He transitioned into a starter after his bullpen work at Eastern Michigan and finished the Cape season at 1-1 with a 2.07 ERA in 17⅓ innings.

That was against what is considered to be the best summer league competition in the country.

“Every at-bat’s a challenge,” Meis said. “I’m always going to believe in myself and always know that, like I said, my goal is to get drafted, and I always believed I could do it, but once you go to a league like that and I had a little bit of success, it kind of hit me, like, you know what, maybe I do fit in a little bit.”

Of course, Meis also was helped by the fact that his pure stuff took a leap. This season in college, he added a changeup and has been working diligently on improving it. That, paired with his low-80s-mph biting slider and a four-seam fastball that sits anywhere from 90-96 mph helped round out his arsenal.

That body of work and the pitch action he attracted MLB teams — specifically, the Pirates.

As is the case with most draft picks, though, there wasn’t much time to celebrate his selection because things moved pretty quickly. After signing with the Pirates July 16, Meis was assigned to the Pirates team in

the Florida Complex League. Twenty days later, he was bumped up to low Class A Bradenton and began his professional baseball career there.

Now he has pitched twice with the Marauders for a total of 3⅓ innings, allowing one earned run, three hits and striking five over that span. It’s a rather inauspicious start to his career, but it’s also the tail end of a busy season for him. For now, he says, the plan is to stay out of the bullpen, where he pitched in college, throw a couple of innings a couple of times a week and work to make a good impression on his new organization.

“I’m really grateful for the opportunity,” Meis said. “We have a month left. So it’s just an opportunity to prove what I can do going into next year, and it’s pretty cool that I’m back already throwing and competing again, because that’s what I missed most.”

What’s more, this is a confirmation of Meis’ belief that he could get this far. It took some work, and he may not have come on to teams’ radars until close to the draft, but he made it.

Even if he did miss the actual games during the draft process, it was probably a break worth taking.

“Each year as I’ve progressed, it’s always been a dream of mine to first play Division I baseball and then ultimately get drafted and be where I’m at now,” Meis said. “As you get older, and as you play better competition, I realized that I had the skills and everything and I could play. But really for me, it was my sophomore year at Eastern and this junior year, right before I got drafted, I took a big jump, and it became a reality, but even when it happens, you’re still kind of in shock. It’s just one of those crazy things.”