Dallas Keuchel rehabs with ‘Cats
LOWELL, MASS » The father of Tri-City catcher Michael Papierski reached his cell phone over the wall along the foul line and tried to capture the moment his son caught a Cy Young award winner.
It took a confluence of factors to get Dallas Keuchel to Tri-City, the place where he started his professional career. The Astros were on the East Coast, and Keuchel was set for his final rehab appearance. And so, one of baseball’s best pitchers took the mound with a backdrop of younger players in awe to share the field with him.
Keuchel pitched in Troy after getting drafted in 2009. He lasted the whole season there, and got the chance to put the jersey on one more time on Saturday evening. Keuchel actually made his pro debut at Lowell nearly eight years ago to the day.
He’s been out of the Majors since June 2 with a neck injury. But before that, he was 9-0 with a 1.67 ERA for the first-place Astros, piggybacking off a Cy Young winning season in 2015.
After tossing his warmup pitches, he fistbumped the other members of the bullpen, some staring at their hands in giddy awe after he’d turned around and headed toward the dugout.
He pitched up to his pedigree on Saturday, allowing just one run on three hits and striking out five batters.
It’s rare that the New York Penn League will ever get a rehabbing player. It’s even rarer for Tri-City, a team that is very far from it’s MLB parent club. But it all worked out on Saturday for one of the all-time greats to return to where it all started.