Photo Credit: ECC Sports
(Editor’s Note: Shea is a 2015 graduate of Molloy College. He just completed his second minor league season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He reached Triple-A this season at just 21-years-old)
by Shea Spitzbarth
I got to Camelback Ranch, AZ (Spring Training Complex) in the morning for extended spring training practice and my pitching coach pulled me out of the clubhouse and said get dressed and pack your bag because your going to Triple-A.
They said they were hurting with arms up there and the way I was throwing in Spring Training and extended that it was great. I had a flight two hours later to Fresno. I pitched 2.1 innings up there and it didn’t go as I planned but this was to help the pitching staff. I learned so much up there from the older guys who were in the big leagues and who are up and coming like Ross Stripling.
I took this experience very positive in so many way and I truly believed it helped me throughout the season which paid off .
After I signed, my parents haven`t seen me play since the Cape Cod, because they had work and my family lives on the east coast and I play on the west coast so it was a struggle. After I got called up from my short-season affiliate, I had the chance to get back on the east coast in Midland, Michigan. It wasn’t close but its the closest team my family can watch me play at. So once I got there my father and my two uncles booked a flight but–go figure–their flight got cancelled. It was disappointing because I haven`t seen them in a while and was looking forward to it.
So two weeks later I`m playing cards in the clubhouse and my dad sends me a picture of the field and I went onto the field and he surprised me behind the dugout. It was great to see him. He saw me pitch that night in which I threw three scoreless innings vs the first place team. And later on during the season my mom and grandmother came as well.
In minor league baseball there are two ways of making the playoffs –by the first half and second half of the season. In the second half we were seven or eight games out of the wildcard playoffs the last month of the season. The organization made some transactions to the roster and from that point we started to gel and were getting on a hot streak. There were not really any defined roles in the bullpen, but towards the last month of the season they started to give me the closing role. Once they gave it to me I never looked back.
We clinched the wildcard spot the second to last game of the season and we just kept on rolling. We won the first round and against the Tampa Rays organization, which my friend (Tim Ingram) was on, and we were off to the semifinals. In Game 3 of semifinals, we came back from a couple of runs and I got called in to close it out. I got the save and we were off to the championship. This was my first time winning a championship since my Staten Island title back in high school but this is for professional baseball.
The champagne, dog pile and trophy ceremony was the best way to finish of a long season for my first full season with the Dodgers organization.
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