Brewer’s Matt Pushard is realizing his dream of pitching in the Major Leagues. He was told this past Saturday by the St. Louis Cardinals brass that he had earned a spot on their opening day roster.
“But I haven’t stepped inside the stadium yet so the whole true feeling hasn’t set in yet,” said Pushard during an off-day on Tuesday afternoon in St. Louis.
The Cardinals will open the season in their Busch Stadium when they host the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday afternoon.
Pushard will be the first Brewer native to make a Major League roster since lefthanded pitcher Danny Coombs pitched for the Houston Colt 45s/Astros and San Diego Padres between 1963 and 1971.
“It’s very special. It’s very cool to be able to represent Maine. It just shows if you believe in it, you can do it. I genuinely believe that,” Pushard said. “A lot of this game is mental and if you can tell yourself you’re good and you belong here, you’re going to have a lot more success.”
The 6-foot-4, 250-pound righthander is coming off a solid campaign in his first full season in AAA with the Marlins’ Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimps.
He was 4-5 with a 3.61 earned-run average and had four saves in four opportunities. He also had five holds.
He had 73 strikeouts in 62 ⅓ innings while allowing 49 hits and three homers in 49 appearances. Opponents hit only .214 off him and he allowed just one earned run or
less in 43 of his 49 outings.
“You have to believe in yourself,” Pushard stressed.
He was obtained from the Miami Marlins by the Cardinals in the Rule 5 draft on Dec. 10.
The 28-year-old former University of Maine closer appeared in eight spring training games for the Cardinals and posted a 3.12 earned-run average in 8 ⅔ innings of work. He struck out nine and walked two while allowing 11 hits including two homers.
In his last four appearances, he didn’t allow a run while striking out four and giving up five hits in 4 ⅔ innings of work.
“Spring training was really good. I threw well, regardless of the box scores. I made good pitches and executed my stuff,” said Pushard. “My velocity was a little down correlating to the virus.”
The virus he was referring to was food poisoning which he contracted on Feb. 4. He said he lost 10 to 12 pounds because of it. He couldn’t keep any food down for two days.
“It took me until the beginning of March to get back to where I was when I first came down to Florida (for spring training),” Pushard said.
He said there are going to be days when you don’t pitch well but you can’t get down on yourself.
“You have to remember when you were feeling really good and try to get back to that,” he said. “If you don’t have your best stuff, you have to find something that enables you to compete.”
He isn’t sure what his role will be with the Cardinals but he indicated that it appears he will be in a long relief role.
Pushard has a five-pitch arsenal: four-seam fastball, slider, change-up, curve and sweeper.
The sweeper became part of his repertoire last year, it is an off-speed breaking pitch that has more of a horizontal, east-west break to it than a curve, which has the same velocity but has more of a north-south break. They are both in the 82-84 miles per hour range.
His four-seam fastball is in the 95-96 miles per hour range and his slider is 88-90 mph.
The change-up is in the 80s.
He said Cardinals taught him a slightly new grip on the sweeper and have encouraged him to throw his change-up more.
“I use my fastball, slider and change-up the most but the curve and sweeper are really hard pitches to hit and they complement the other three pitches really well,” said Pushard, who signed a free agent contract with the Marlins four years ago after leading America East in saves with nine in his final season at UMaine in 2022.
He is confident, noting that a lot of the Major League hitters he will face are hitters he has already faced in college or the minor leagues.
“The game doesn’t change. It’s all the same. You have to go out there and throw strikes,” Pushard said. “Just because the moment is bigger, you don’t need to go out and make your pitches better or anything like that.”