Before Thursday night, Travis Metcalf’s mere presence at former Kansas University teammate Tom Gorzelanny’s wedding as an usher this upcoming November was going to be more than enough to validate his friendship.
Now he might have to crack open his wallet to send that same message.
Metcalf, a rookie third baseman in his second trip to the majors this season with the Texas Rangers, Thursday night victimized Gorzelanny in the top of the sixth inning of their first major-league encounter. It came in the form of a home run, leaving the spacious confines of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park in a 6-0 Texas win. The solo jack wasn’t just Metcalf’s first long ball as a big leaguer – it also was his first major-league hit.
“He told me I have to buy him a really nice wedding gift,” Metcalf joked of his postgame conversation with his friend, the Pirates’ rising star. “After the game it was over and done with, we were back to being friends.”
He admittedly did a poor job of hiding that friendship in his first plate appearance of the night, though.
“Anything on the field is real businesslike, but I came up my first at-bat and kind of grinned,” he said. “It kind of snuck out. Kind of one of those unreal experiences, me and him coming all the way up and finally playing against each other.”
Former KU teammates Matt Tribble and Tyson Bothoff, watching at home, even let Metcalf hear it after the game. They caught the smirk while the camera was zoomed on his face during the television broadcast.
Metcalf was drafted in the 11th round in 2004 as KU’s career leader in home runs. Gorzelanny was a relative unknown to Jayhawk fans in his two-year Lawrence stint, before transferring to Triton Junior College near his hometown of Evergreen Park, Ill., and resurfacing a year later as a second-round selection.
On Thursday, though, Metcalf came in as the mystery man to most against Gorzelanny, who after Thursday is 6-4 on the season with 54 strikeouts and an impressive 3.04 ERA.
In the first at-bat, Gorzelanny caught Metcalf with a change-up and forced him into a ground out to second. After a slider in the dirt to start the second showdown, Metcalf, up 1-0 in the count, knew what he wanted.
“He came back with a fastball up over the plate,” he said. “What I was looking for was something elevated. Tom does a good job of keeping the ball down.
“I hit it pretty square, got it pretty good, but it was one of those things where I was like ‘I hit it square and it could be gone.’ But the way the balls were flying in batting practice, I was running hard because it could have fell. I got one later in the game which I felt I hit just as hard, but it only made it to the warning track.”
In his second trip in less than a month to the majors, Metcalf has had a tough time finding a comfort zone on offense. He typically starts only against left-handed pitchers, while Ramon Vazquez starts against righties. This weekend in Cincinnati, the Rangers face three right-handed hurlers, but Metcalf made the start Saturday night, going 2-for-4 with two doubles and a pair of RBIs.
“It’s one of those things where if you only start every couple of days, only against lefties, you get kind of jumpy, really mechanical, and you really want to get a hit,” he said. “So in a pinch-hit at-bat, you have to try to slow it down and act like you’ve been in there the whole game.”
Metcalf has stepped into the batter’s box 15 times as a Ranger after Saturday’s 8-4 loss to the Reds. His first trip to the big club’s roster lasted just three days, but during his second go-round, guys with more major-league experience such as Victor Diaz and Marlon Byrd have begun teaching him how to be an MLB ballplayer on and off the field.
Metcalf isn’t quite sure how long this trip to the majors will last, with first baseman Mark Teixeira due back from the disabled list in the next week or two.
But no matter how long it lasts, after Wednesday, he felt like an actual part of something.
“It’s a breakthrough,” he said. “It was a good feeling, finally feeling like I contributed to the team. The rest of the time, coming back to the dugout, it feels like you weren’t there for a reason.”
