With Tylor Megill landing on the IL and the New York Mets not needing someone to make a start in his place for a few days, the Mets opted to add another bullpen arm. After putting Trevor May on the 60 day IL, that arm was Colin Holderman.
Holderman was drafted by the Mets in the ninth round of the 2016 draft. Thus began a long journey which included Tommy John surgery and a global pandemic. As long as his road was, it was literally and figuratively longer the day he got the call.
On the morning of his call-up, he was in Scranton as the Syracuse Mets were playing a road series against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. Holderman took an Uber from Scranton to Citi Field. As he put it, it was a white 2010 Camry that served as his chariot to The Show.
https://twitter.com/snytv/status/1525955204470001666?s=21
This was reminiscent of the Uber ride Rajai Davis made from Pennsylvania in May 2019. Like Davis, Holderman enjoyed the ride saying, “We had a great conversation the whole way here. It was awesome.”
Also like Davis, Holderman would get into the game. The key difference here is this was Holderman’s Major League debut.
His debut got off to a rocky start. After a lead-off single from Ty France, Holderman fell behind J.P. Crawford 3-1. Holderman rebounded to get back into the count and strike out Crawford.
Colin Holderman with a scoreless inning in his Major League debut today. He allowed two hits and reached 98 mph on the radar gun, with one strikeout, after opening eyes this spring when he touched triple digits.
Mariners 8, Mets 5, mid-nine. pic.twitter.com/UFl1rYSuzG
— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) May 15, 2022
Holderman got Crawford swinging at a 95 MPH sinker which tailed out of the zone.
While he didn’t hit 100 MPH like he did in Spring Training, he did hit 98 MPH while averaging 96 MPH on his sinker.
Overall, Holderman allowed two hits in his scoreless inning of work. If he Mets pulled off that rally, he would’ve been the winning pitcher. Alas, that wasn’t to be.
That said, Holderman was still the big winner on the day just by making it there. He withstood an injury, a pandemic, and the physical and mental grind just to make it to the majors.
