ST. LOUIS -- For the first weeks of his Major League career, Mickey Gasper's parents received almost as much screen time as Gasper himself did. As a rookie with the Red Sox, Gasper’s quest for his first big league hit was exhaustively documented on television.
Every at-bat, the cameras would pan to Mick Sr. and Livia, anxiously pulling for their son to collect his first big league hit. Every at-bat, it didn’t happen. Gasper went 0-for-18 as a member of the Red Sox despite plenty of hard contact.
Finally, on Saturday afternoon at Busch Stadium, he and they were rewarded. And mom and dad can exhale.
“I just said to [Mick Sr.], now we can enjoy the baseball season,” Livia said. “It’s just been on everybody’s mind. We knew it was going to happen.”
As for Mickey, he certainly would have preferred that the milestone come in a win. Instead the Twins fell, 5-1, to the Cardinals. But it was still plenty special, especially because his parents and his fiancée were in the crowd to see it.
“That’s why you play, for them,” he said. “All the hours my dad, my mom put in getting me to practices and games, coaching, it’s really all for them.”
Gasper’s journey to the big leagues was plenty long before he even got his first at-bat. He was a 27th-round Draft pick in 2018 after four years at Bryant University in Rhode Island. Like all other Minor Leaguers at the time, he missed out on playing in 2020 due to COVID-19.
It was still another two years before Gasper even saw Triple-A, arriving there for the first time in ‘23. The Red Sox selected him from the Yankees organization in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 Draft, and finally in ‘24, he cracked the big league roster.
Gasper made his first Opening Day roster earlier this week, and got the start on Saturday. After a popup and a fly ball to right, he hit a roller to the left side. Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn made a nice play on the ball, unleashed his cannon of a throwing arm, and it wasn’t quite enough.
Gasper had his hit.
“That’s why you run hard down the line,” he said. “I always got yelled at by my dad to run hard, so it just turned out. Wet grass today, Winn made a nice play getting on his belly, and I was able to beat it out."
Third-base coach Tommy Watkins made sure to get the ball, which will be in Gasper’s hands soon. Gasper wasn’t asked what he’ll do with it, but it seems there’s a decent chance it’ll end up in mom and dad’s house.
“It’s amazing,” said Mick Sr. “It’s been a long journey for him. I coached and stuff, and I never saw a kid work harder. So what else can I say?”
Comebacker was the turning point
When manager Rocco Baldelli decided that Joe Ryan had had enough after five innings on Saturday, he turned first to right-hander Jorge Alcala. The righty’s third pitch was the turning point in the game.
With an 0-2 count, Alcala unleashed a 98.5 mph fastball, up and out of the zone. Nolan Arenado laced it back up the middle at 95.4 mph. The ball hit Alcala on his right forearm, then skittered away from shortstop Carlos Correa and into the outfield as Arenado ended up on second.
Baldelli went out to check on Alcala, who reported that he felt fine. But he walked the next two batters before being removed, and acknowledged in retrospect he wasn’t the same after being hit.
“At the moment, I didn’t feel anything,” Alcala said through an interpreter. “I felt the energy and everything, but that’s why I kept on pitching.
“It did kind of affect [me], because once I started throwing again, it kind of felt tight there, but the velocity was there.”
The bases-loaded, none-out situation ended up yielding three runs, and the Twins never threatened after that.
“That's something when the player is talking to our trainer, Nick [Paparesta], if they say they're fine and don't feel anything, you assume they're fine,” Baldelli said. “But I think we're going to go check on him and make sure everything is all right. I hope he's all right. He didn't throw the ball great, he wasn't commanding the ball well at all really after he got the comebacker. And that was the big inning for them.”