Jackson Jobe had been "waiting for this day for a while," he said. He can't wait for the next one.
The top pitching prospect in baseball ran out to a roar at Comerica Park, the fans standing and chanting his name as he emerged from the bullpen for his MLB debut. They had been waiting for this day even longer, the Tigers on the verge of their first playoff berth in 10 years. Parker Meadows got goosebumps in center field as he watched -- and listened -- to Jobe take the stage in The Show.
"I don't know how many of you have been welcomed to a big league park the way that Jackson Jobe just was," A.J. Hinch said with a smile. "But that was pretty incredible. Just the enthusiasm, the anticipation."
Jobe lived up to the moment, firing his first pitch at 96 mph, his fourth at 99 and sealing the Tigers' 7-1 win over the Rays on his 10th. He said he wasn't working with any kind of "in-depth scouting report." The plan was to attack, "and that's what I did."
"Trusted Ding (catcher Dillon Dingler) back there and trusted my stuff plays up here -- and I believe it does," said Jobe.
The performance looked a bit like his spring training debut six months ago, when Jobe hurled a handful of triple-digit heaters and retired the Twins in order. Jobe, 22, said he "felt more nervous in the moment for that one than I did today."
"I felt pretty comfortable out there. I was almost more nervous leading up to it than I was out there on the mound," he said. "So we’ll just keep building on it, hopefully get into bigger and better situations as we move on."
That's the Tigers' plan. They summoned Jobe to Detroit because they believe he can help them not only make the playoffs -- their magic number is down to three -- but make a run. President of baseball ops Scott Harris said he and Hinch started talking about it on the team's last road trip when the postseason came into focus and decided that "if we have a player like Jackson who can really help us, we should just push the button and give this organization every chance to get in."
"We think going into a really important week of games and hopefully the playoffs, the ability to throw elite stuff at some of the hitters we’re going to face is a huge boost for a team like ours," Harris told the Turning The Corner podcast. "I also think the more we talked about it, the more we realized we owe it to this team of players and to the fans to put our best foot forward to try to make the playoffs and hopefully go deep in the playoffs. This market hasn’t been in the playoffs for a long time."
The excitement at Comerica was palpable Wednesday night. The crowd was louder and lustier than it's been in recent memory, roused by one of the most improbable late-season runs in MLB history. Meadows lit the fuse with a lead-off homer in the bottom of the first; Spencer Torkelson detonated it with a two-run bomb in the sixth. The fervor reached a fever pitch for Jobe, who was throwing feverish pitches.
"I mean, it was crazy," said Jobe. "I don’t really think it’s fully hit me yet. It’d be tough to draw it up any better than that, with this crowd and the position that this team’s in. That was really special."
The fans?
"They won me over pretty quick, they did," he beamed. "That was awesome. I want to do that again."
October beckons. As Torkelson said, "That’s just the beginning for him." Jobe will eventually be pitching in the Tigers' rotation, as soon as next season. For now, he's another weapon out of their lethal bullpen. The fans welcomed him to Detroit like Ricky Vaughn in Major League, only Jobe has major league command. The crowds will be even bigger this weekend.
"We know what Comerica is and we know what it can be," said Hinch. "This place can be electrifying if we can bring a postseason game here."
It's a bad time to be a hitter, when Jobe takes the hill.
"It’s a good time to be a Tiger," he said.