Las Vegas’ Tyler Anderson makes another quality start for Colorado Rockies
Until Monday, when his nephew Tyler Anderson got the starting pitching nod for the Colorado Rockies against the San Francisco Giants on national TV on the Fourth of July, Tio DiFederico said he had never witnessed a ballgame at windswept AT&T Park.
He said he witnessed one at windswept Candlestick Park once. With his father. Willie Mays was playing center field for the Giants.
What a thrill that was, said the local real estate appraiser. It always was when you were with the old man and “The Say Hey Kid” was shagging flies.
When we spoke during the seventh inning — after Tyler had been pulled from his fifth big league start after again pitching well — his Uncle Tio said he had a new major league thrill as it pertains to the city by the bay.
“Not even close,” he said about having just watched his nephew allow three runs and four hits in six solid innings during a 3-1 loss to the first-place Giants. “It was just surreal, awesome. It’s just so much fun to see him (pitch) up here. It was a long journey …”
The Rockies are the fourth team for which Tyler Anderson, Colorado’s first-round draft pick in 2011 (via Oregon and Las Vegas’ Spring Valley High), has pitched this season.
He began 2016 with Modesto of the high-Class A California League before moving up to Double-A Hartford of the Eastern League. Then it was up again, to Albuquerque in the Pacific Coast League, and then it was the quantum leap up to the Rockies on June 11.
At 26 years old, Tyler Anderson had made it. He became the fifth Las Vegas phenom to be drafted in the first round since 2010 to get the big per diem money, joining Bryce Harper (2010), Joey Gallo (2012) and Kris Bryant and Aaron Blair (2013).
“He called about 10:30 at night, which was very unusual, because he never calls home,” his mom, Mary, told the Rockies’ roving TV reporter on June 12, the day Anderson made his big league debut against the Padres.
“He said, ‘I’m goin’ to Denver’ and we all screamed and yelled and then I think he called the entire family.”
It must have been like sitting through a doubleheader with a rain delay and about 10 Mike Hargrove at-bats, because Tyler Anderson has a family tree with myriad limbs, branches and acorns. And other assorted nuts.
“I’m sitting with Tyler Anderson’s family,” said the Rockies’ roving reporter. “John Anderson (Tyler’s dad) is to my left, I got Mary Anderson, there’s a lot of people here — Jamie is here, his sister; CeCe his (stepsister); Uncle Tio is here …”
A lot of Tyler’s peeps were there.
Of the June 12 start, Nick Groke in the Denver Post wrote: “Tyler Anderson’s family was easy to spot Sunday in the green seats of Section 130 behind home plate at Coors Field.
“The Andersons were the clan having the most fun. And when Tyler walked to the Rockies’ dugout in the seventh inning to a standing ovation, they were the ones who clapped the hardest and cried the most.”
For 6 1/3 innings Tyler made the Padres cry uncle, and then he made his uncles cry.
Would the uncles and his other family members — Tio DiFederico said there were around 40 on Tyler’s pass list Monday — have traveled to Modesto or Hartford to watch him pitch for the Nuts or the Yard Goats on the Fourth of July? Probably not, but his uncles are pretty eccentric. So you never know.
So to recap, Tyler Anderson has pitched for four teams this year, which is pretty unusual, especially when one considers that last year he didn’t pitch for any teams.
Anderson was making excellent progress up Colorado’s minor league ladder — he was 7-4 with a tidy 1.98 earned-run average for Double-A Tulsa in 2014 while walking 40 and striking out 123 in 23 starts en route to being named Texas League Pitcher of the Year.
But a stress fracture in his pitching elbow flared up, and then the Rockies sat him down for a good, long spell — for the entire 2015 season. It now appears that was the right move.
“A lot of things to like about this kid right here,” ESPN’s Rick Sutcliffe said Monday after Anderson tossed his warmup pitches against San Francisco.
Sutcliffe said it again in the third inning. He mentioned that Anderson is a crafty left-hander — aren’t a lot of them? — who has a herky-jerky motion, pays attention to baserunners and fields his position. He works quickly, Sutcliffe said. He also said plate umpire Gerry Davis was squeezing him on some of his pitches.
Anderson’s very next changeup caught a little bit too much of home plate, and Angel Pagan poked it into the bleachers (with an assist by the wind) for a two-run homer. Buster Posey had taken him deep in the second. No shame in that. Posey takes a lot of pitchers with a lot more experience than him to great depths.
“Really, really nice job again by Tyler Anderson,” Sutcliffe said after the crafty left-hander from Las Vegas had made another quality big league start in falling to 0-3.
It really, really was, and Uncle Tio and the other relatives were really, really proud in the city by the bay.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.
