Arlington, Texas – There’s no cheering in the press box. You don’t get to root when you wear these media badges — unless it’s for a fast game or a quick decision on a rainout call.
But you can appreciate. You can empathize. You can marvel. You can respect.
All of the above with Tigers’ right-hander Drew Hutchison, who will pitch the finale against the Rangers on Sunday.
Appreciate his indomitable will and unshakable self-belief. Empathize with his struggles. Marvel at his resiliency. Respect that after countless disappointments and setbacks, a steady string of rejections and pink slips, he is, at age 31, still pitching, and contributing at the highest level of the game.
“That’s the whole thing,” Hutchison said. “If I didn’t think I could pitch I’d be playing golf every day or doing something different. But for me, it was just trying to position myself to get an opportunity somewhere. It gets harder and harder.
“Thankfully, I was able to get here.”
Sunday will be his 12th start this season. It’s the most he’s posted since 2015. In fact, it is two more than all the starts he had combined from 2016 through last year. He’s been more steady than spectacular, with a 3.90 ERA in his 11 starts. More often than not, though, he’s kept the Tigers in the game for five or six innings.
He’s allowed three earned runs or less in five straight starts, one run in three of them.
Useful stuff from a guy the Tigers designated for assignment four times in the last two seasons, twice this season, and brought back.
“That’s why I came back,” Hutchison said. “It was my best opportunity to get right back to the big leagues. You kind of know what the situation is.”
The situation hasn’t always been so clear. Like why the Blue Jays cut bait with him so abruptly after he made 60 start and won 24 games in 2014 and 2015. How did he end up being the odd man out there? Why hasn’t he, until maybe now, six years later, been able to find a steady big-league job?
“Sometimes you get labeled in this game, sometimes fairly so,” he said. “It’s just stuff that’s out of my control.”
Like in Toronto. He was the club’s Opening Day starter in 2015 and took the ball every five days, making 28 starts. But then there was a leadership change. Mark Shapiro became the new president and CEO and soon after general manager Alex Anthopoulus, who had drafted Hutchison out of Lakeland (Fla.) High School in 2009 and nurtured him through Tommy John surgery in 2012, turned down a contract extension and left the organization.
It was like the floor falling out from under Hutchison.
“They were going to use six starters that year and I was the sixth,” he said. “New front office. I wasn’t making quite enough money to get traded but making just enough to where they could pay me to be in Triple-A.”
Hutchison ultimately lost out on the No. 5 starter spot to Aaron Sanchez, then 23, who had the best year of his career — 15-2, 3.00 ERA, made the All-Star team and got Cy Young Award votes. You wonder how Hutchison’s career path might’ve been different if the Blue Jays had traded him that spring instead of burying him in Triple-A?
“It is what it is,” he said. “I got traded from there (on Aug. 1 to the Pirates) after not getting traded at the beginning of the year. I just kind of went like that for a while.”
Did it ever.
He spent the entire 2017 season starting for the Pirates Triple-A team in Indianapolis. In 2018 he bounced from the Phillies, Dodgers and Rangers, pitching in a total of 16 games with five starts.
The next two years were even more trying. He pitched in Triple-A for three different organizations in 2019 — Yankees, Twins and Angels — without getting a sniff at the big leagues. Then he spent the COVID season of 2020 pitching in an independent league for the Milwaukee Milkmen.
All the while, he kept going back to Lakeland, kept working out at the formerly-named Florida Baseball Ranch, kept refining his skills, stayed positive, stayed resolute.
Then the Tigers called. After spending the first three months last year making 17 starts at Triple-A Toledo, he finally was called back to the big leagues.
Briefly.
He made just two appearances, a rough relief outing against the Indians then a strong start (4.1 innings, one run) at Toronto. A week after he was called up, he was designated for assignment.
“It’s just how it happens sometimes,” he said. “You can either be real upset about it or just try to handle what you can. It’s that old cliché but it’s true.”
Something was different about the Tigers, though. Manager AJ Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter were as open and honest as any coaches Hutchison had dealt with. He would explore other opportunities, for sure, but he had a feeling he’d be back.
And he was. He made seven relief appearances in September and pitched well. He picked up three wins, allowed just three runs in 15.1 innings and limited hitters to a .220 batting average.
But — rise, rinse and repeat — he was released after the season and then sweated out the 99-day lockout without knowing if he had a job for 2022.
“I knew even last year, there was a comfortability here from finishing the season the way we did,” he said. “During the lockout I had the idea that teams were going to sign familiar people. I had a feeling I’d be back here.”
A non-roster invitee to spring training, Hutchison won a job in the bullpen and limited hitters to a .207 batting average in 10 outings. He allowed eight runs in 15.2 innings, four in one rough game at Houston.
Then, on June 20, the Tigers needed to clear a roster spot to activate Jeimer Candelario off the injured list. So long, again, Hutch.
But even as he waited to clear waivers and see what other opportunities there might be, he could see what was in front of him with the Tigers. The starting pitching ranks had been drastically thinned by injuries. He was already partially stretched out.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
“I think at this point I’m pretty good at rolling with things,” he said after he rejoined the Tigers on July 5. “I have a good idea of what’s going on. And like I said, that communication and them being honest with me makes that decision a little simpler.”
It’s been a good decision for him and for the club. And he has no delusions of security or permanence here. He is arbitration-eligible this winter and will likely be non-tendered.
But he’s done what he set out to do. He’s proven that he is a capable and reliable big-league pitcher. Not that he needs any kind of outside validation.
“I don’t look at it like that,” he said. “I still have a lot to do and I’m still focused on what I’m doing here right now. We still have a lot of season left.”
Twitter@cmccosky