Everything felt different.
The home crowd was cheering for the visiting team — or at least a visiting player. The fans were loud during a rare minor league sellout for which so many were wearing blue and orange. And then there was the guy on the mound for the visiting club, a pitcher who, to the opposing batters, has existed more in digital form than flesh and blood.
“You’re facing a guy that you play with on the video game all the time,” Austin Callahan of the Daytona Tortugas said after he faced the real-life Jacob deGrom.
On Friday, deGrom’s rehab assignment brought him to Daytona Beach, Fla., about a half-hour drive from where the best pitcher on the planet played his college ball at Stetson. A three-inning outing became a showcase for the locals to see deGrom up close once more. The poor batters from the Single-A Tortugas, a Reds affiliate, were the chosen sacrifices at the deGrom altar.
Credit: Source link
