By Josh Hall
Lucas Harrell has never been one to shy away from the spotlight.
He’s also never been one to back away from a challenge
“He had a flare for the dramatics,” said Mike Essick, who coached Harrell for two years at Ozark High School. “The bigger the stage, the better he performed. He loved when the lights came on.”
Harrell, didn’t lack confidence, either. During his senior year at Ozark, Harrell was pitching in a state semifinal game against Sikeston. The opposing pitcher was former big-leaguer Blake DeWitt.
“Lucas looked at me and said, ‘he’s going to throw me a slider on the first pitch and I’m going to hit it over the trees in right field,’” former Ozark assistant baseball coach Jason Howser said. “I kind of looked at him and went ‘all right’ and jogged to the first-base coaches box.”
What happened Next?
“He threw him a first-pitch slider and he hit it about 400 feet over the trees in right center,” Howser said. “He’d talk a lot, but he could back up a lot what he was talking about, and that’s that confidence that he had.”
Ozark went on to beat Sikeston 2-1 before claiming an 8-2 win against MICDS in the Class 3 title game in 2004.
Soon after, Harrell was drafted in the fourth round by the Chicago White Sox in the Major League Baseball June Amateur draft.
It wasn’t a surprise. Harrell threw in the mid-90’s in high school. He had a 75 mile-per-hour fastball when he was nine.
That’s when former teammate Zane Montgomery knew Harrell was something special.
“Lucas was a gamer,” Montgomery said. “He was the kind of guy that could step out there after picking up a baseball a week before and be in midseason form. He led by example. You always wanted him on your side because you knew he was going to go 110 percent.”
Despite trades, demotions and releases in the past seven years since being drafted, Harrell has never stopped giving 110 percent.
That might be why the 32-year-old is still playing Major League Baseball.
“He had a single focus,” Montgomery said. “He was going to play baseball, and that’s all he ever wanted to do.”
As a free agent with no team to play for, Harrell signed a minor-league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays on October 28, 2016.
He was invited to spring training, but began the season on the disabled list with bicep tendinitis. Once healthy, he made six starts between Single-A Dunedin and Triple-A Buffalo. In those six outings, Harrell recorded a 2.28 ERA with 10 walks and 20 strikeouts in 27 and 2/3’s innings of work.
He was called up to the big leagues on Saturday and surrendered two earned runs on five hits in 2 and 2/3’s innings during his first major-league appearance in 10 months.
Harrell doesn’t brag about those numbers. He was just happy to be back on the mound in a major-league stadium.
“It feels great. It’s just one of those things where at the beginning of the year I knew I could still pitch at the big-league level,” Harrell said during a phone interview Monday. “It was just the fact I wasn’t healthy during spring training. I had a shoulder problem for a little bit and finally made it back to Buffalo. I pitched well there and gave myself an opportunity to come up here to Toronto.”
Harrell’s role has not been set in stone for the big-league club, but he will likely be a reliever after spending most of his career as a starting pitcher.
“Whatever they need me to do, I’ll do, Harrell said. “If they need me to start, or relieve, long relief, middle relief, one inning. Whatever they need me to do, I’ll do.”
Harrell got a taste of throwing out of the bullpen in his debut with the Blue Jays.
“I have been a starter pretty much my whole career,” he said. “Throwing out of the bullpen, it’s just changing your mindset a little bit – the way you attack hitters when you go in the game. I got kind of a dose of that the other day when I went in against Boston.”
Harrell made his major-league debut against Oakland on July 30, 2010 when he was 25 years old. He earned the win after allowing four hits, five walks and one strikeout in six innings.
Prior to the game, Harrell received a phone call from former Ozark basketball coach Steve Hunter, who was in Chicago visiting friends at the time. Harrell helped lead the Tigers to a state championship in basketball under Hunter in 2003. The two remain close friends to this day.
“I thought, he’s not going to answer,” Hunter said. “He’s on his way to pitch in his major-league debut. And all be darn, he answers the phone and said, ‘I’m pitching tonight.’ I said, I know I’m going to be there. He goes, ‘do you need tickets?’ I go ‘yeah!’”
After a year with Chicago, Harrell was selected off waivers by the Houston Astros, and in April 2014 he was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks. A few months later, he was released.
It was another challenge for Harrell, but challenges don’t seem to bother him.
During his senior year of high school, Harrell was 15 minutes late for the bus that was headed to Branson for a district championship game. Essick and Howser didn’t know what to do.
“I looked at Howser and said, what do I do? Is it fair to hold all of these other kids hostage? We knew we had a great chance of winning that district with him on the mound,” Essick said. “We kicked it back and forth and said, ‘yeah, that’s not fair to these other kids”
Harrell didn’t get off that easy,
“I went back and had a few words with him,” Howser recalls.
Harrell went on to throw a no-hitter that game.
“He comes up to coach Howser and I and he said, ‘coach Howser, I want you to talk to me like that before every game I pitch,” Essick said.
“He responded to that,” Howser said. “Anytime he was challenged, he didn’t pout. He bowed his neck and got better. Maybe that’s why he’s still pitching at the age he’s at with so many transitions in his career. He’s a tough-minded person.
“He’s had to face some challenges and adversity, and he’s still going. He’s still pitching in the big leagues.”
Harrell stepped away from American baseball in 2015 and played for LG Twin in Korea for a season.
“It was a chance to get away and clear my head and re-focus on the things I needed to,” he said. “It was good for me to go over there. clear my head and start over.”
Harrell went on to sign as a free agent in March 2016 with the Detroit Tigers. He was released in May, but signed as a free agent four days later with the Atlanta Braves. In July, he was traded to the Texas Rangers.
It wasn’t an easy year for Harrell, but he kept at it.
“Last year would have been the year that was most mentally draining on me. At the end of the year, I was pretty spent,” he said. “All the moving, and having to pack everything, and do this and do that, it was pretty taxing on me more mentally than it was physically.”
Harrell didn’t throw in the towel and he doesn’t plan to for a while.
Now he gets another shot to play on the big stage. It’s what he’s always been best at.
“He was one of those guys that loved to compete, but he loved it when the lights were on,” Hunter said. “When the lights came on, he was the guy that wanted the ball in his hand, whether he was pitching or taking an open three-pointer. He was a gamer. When the chips are down, and you need somebody to make a play, he was that guy.
“He was someone you could count on in the clutch.”
