Rocket City manager Andy Schatzley, the Netos reasoned, probably was just playing it safe, trying to protect Zach if further trouble ensued. Barons manager, Lorenzo Bundy, was thrown out, too.
The previous inning, Birmingham Barons pitcher Caleb Freeman was ejected after hitting a batter. Watching on television, they did not think anything unusual was afoot when Zach, the second of their three children, was removed in the eighth inning of what turned out to be his last game for Rocket City before his call-up. #️⃣9️⃣ is in the building #GoHalos | /zZaGt1Zp圎 Yet after only 44 minor-league games, the Angels summoned their prized 6-foot, 185-pound prospect to become teammates with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani in one of the sport’s most fabled venues, Fenway Park. Neto, barely 22, came out of Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C., a school that plays in the Big South Conference, not the more powerful ACC or SEC. Automatic, post-draft September call-ups were written into their contracts, a practice the league abolished after 2011. The only two to debut with fewer minor-league plate appearances than Neto, Conor Gillespie and Rickie Weeks, received artificial boosts. The list includes a number of players who became stars, from Buster Posey to Troy Tulowitzki, Alex Bregman to Trea Turner. In this century, according to Baseball America, only 17 previous position players had made their major-league debuts in the season following their draft year. He would become the first player from the 2022 draft to reach the majors, and that wasn’t all. To that point, the extent of Zach’s professional experience was 201 plate appearances in the minor leagues. Now they were summoning him from their Double-A affiliate, the Rocket City Trash Pandas, to be their starting shortstop. Only nine months before, the Angels had selected Zach with the 13th overall pick of baseball’s amateur draft. Boston? Where the Angels were playing? Maggie and Joaquin could be forgiven for reacting incredulously.
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