Garcia recounts time in Florida

Pitcher Luis Garcia’s unexpected route to Minute Maid Park in an Astros uniform got off to an inauspicious start, with him practicing in the parking lot of a Florida hotel after COVID-19 shut down organized baseball this spring.

Garcia, 23, born in Bolivar, Venezuela, and signed by the Astros in 2017, was one of several Venezuelan players stranded in Florida and unable to get back home because of travel restrictions. He was added to the Astros’ player pool for the shortened season and assigned to the alternate training site in Corpus Christi before being called up to the big league roster last Saturday.

“You want to be with your family and friends,” Garcia said of the weeks following the shutdown. “We were hoping to go back to Venezuela, but they closed the airport, and that wasn’t an option.”

Stuck in Florida with other Venezuelan players, he said, “was hard. I was in Florida, practicing in a parking lot and trying to be close to 100 percent conditioning. Then they called me to come here to Houston, and I tried to put my body in good shape.”

Garcia last year played at Class A Quad Cities and Class A Advanced Fayetteville, recording a combined 10-4 record with 168 strikeouts in 1082⁄3 innings. His fastball hovers in the mid-90s range, and he also has a curveball, slider and changeup and said he is working on a cutter.

Ranked by Baseball America as the Astros’ 14th-best prospect, Garcia is expected to pitch primarily out of the bullpen but might get a start in one of Saturday’s doubleheader games at Anaheim against the Angels.

“I’ve been practicing every day,” he said, “and getting ready for the call or whatever they wanted or needed me to do.”