In the best of times, sports allow us to dream about extraordinary things. Take Friday. Carlos Urias flew with his family from Mexico to New York City to see his 19-year-old son Julio make his major league debut. Juan Castro, a coach for the Dodgers, got a call from his own father in Sinaloa on Friday morning asking about the teenage phenom.
Broadcasters and even teammates posed for pictures with Urias in the Dodgers’ clubhouse at Citi Field—behaviour usually reserved for, well, no one. This was something extraordinary.
Only 16 pitchers since 1914 have won their first major league start before their 20th birthday. It’s a list that includes Hall of Famers like Babe Ruth and Bert Blyleven, early retirees like David Clyde and Josh Billings, and no one since Dwight Gooden in 1984.
It does not include Urias, the Dodgers’ top pitching prospect, who was knocked out in the third inning of the Dodgers’ 6-5 loss to the New York Mets. Curtis Granderson’s home run off Pedro Baez in the bottom of the ninth inning broke a tie game in the Mets’ final at-bat.
It was a familiar ending for the Dodgers (25-24), who are accustomed to dream-crushing defeats. They’ve lost four games in walk-off fashion this season.
Urias’ 10.13 earned-run average aside, his dream is alive and well. “No matter what happens, for him it’s a win-win situation,” Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal said. “You don’t have too many 19-year-olds starting a major league game.”
Urias struggled when he reached Triple-A last year, then threw 27 consecutive scoreless innings this year. He struggled briefly at Double-A in 2014, then moved up a level after only six games. In that regard, his final line on Friday—2 2/3 innings, five hits, three runs, four walks, three strikeouts—was nothing new.
Then again, Urias had never experienced a day like this, beginning with a gaggle of autograph seekers at the Dodgers’ Manhattan hotel and ending with the cacophony of a sold-out crowd of 43,462 at Citi Field.
“When I went out there, I started thinking about everything I had to go through to get here,” Urias said in Spanish through an interpreter. “But when I was on the mound I was able to settle down, be a little more comfortable.”
Urias never seemed comfortable with home plate umpire Dan Bellino’s strike zone. He threw a first-pitch strike to four of the 17 batters he faced. With the count in the hitters’ favor so often, Urias allowed two doubles, two singles, walked a batter and threw a wild pitch—and that was just the first inning.
Before the inning was over, the Mets had a 3-0 lead and Chris Hatcher was warming up in the bullpen. Had Urias thrown 40 pitches, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he would have pulled the rookie then and there. Urias threw 36.
The second inning passed quickly for the Mets. Urias retired the first two men he faced in the third, then loaded the bases on a single and two walks. That’s when Roberts decided he’d seen enough. Urias threw 81 pitches, one less than his season-high.
“I was just trying to hit the zone,” Urias said. “When I wasn’t getting one of the calls, I would just try to get it on the next one.”
Grandal said that was part of the problem. “I kept telling him, don’t try to throw a strike. Just throw the ball,” he said. “Wherever my mitt’s at, just throw it. At times he’s just trying to put the ball there rather than just throw it. That can happen to a lot of guys.”
The Mets tacked on single runs in the fourth and fifth innings, only to see the Dodgers rally from a 5-1 deficit against closer Jeurys Familia in the ninth.
After Grandal drew a walk with the bases loaded, Chase Utley’s bases-clearing, two-out double tied the game 5-5. Utley went 1 for 2 with a pair of walks in his first game at Citi Field since his infamous slide in last year’s National League Division Series that broke the leg of then-Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada.
Baez pitched the bottom of the ninth inning and faced one batter, Granderson. The veteran outfielder fouled off the first pitch he saw and hit the second for a home run into the right-field bleachers. The Dodgers spared Urias the ignominy of a loss in his major league debut; they could not shelter the teenager from the hard truth of their frustrating existence.
“Too many times during a game, we go dry and there’s a lot of non-competitive at-bats and quick outs and not playing as an offensive unit – as one,” Roberts said. “As far as pitching, sometimes it seems like where we get a couple runs, then the other team answers with a run. You’ve got to have that shutdown inning.”
To his credit, Urias soaked it all in, the highs and the lows, and seemed no less like a 19-year-old living the dream.
“When you’re out there, especially being my first outing in this type of stadium, you don’t really realize what’s happening,” he said.
“I will never forget the first strikeout, especially being a batter like Granderson. I will never forget anything that happened in this game because this is the happiest day of my life.”