Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Derek Eitel's Debut In Major League Baseball


My nephew, Derek Eitel, is entering his sixth year as a minor league pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks at the Diamondbacks' spring training facility in Scottsdale, Arizona. Last year, he was elevated to the Reno Aces, the franchise's triple A baseball team. This week, he was excited to get the opportunity to pitch in a preseason game between the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers, his debut in major league pitching. The two teams have a notorious rivalry. Watch the YouTube clip as Derek is one of four players and coaches to be tossed from the game for hitting a batter. Derek assured his parents tagging the batter was not his intention. The Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks 7-4. The announcer had a little difficulty pronouncing Derek's last name. It's pronounced "Eye-tle."

UPDATE: Here's another video which shows all of Derek's pitches during his brief MLB debut.

3 comments:

Paul K. Ogden said...

This is so cool. Look forward to his making it to the bigs.

Anonymous said...

Good luck to him. Do you mean `hitting a batter'--what is `tagging a batter'?

Gary R. Welsh said...

Thanks for the terminology correction. Yes, hitting.