By Blake Dowson
There are a lot of long bus trips, cold showers, and late nights for a minor-league baseball player.
But when a player gets the call from his major-league club that his contract has been selected, it makes it all worth it.
Matt Dermody, a former Iowa pitcher who played three different levels in the Toronto Blue Jays’ farm system this year, got that call on Thursday.
“I am not a big jump for joy kind of guy,” Dermody said in a release. But I was like, ‘Cool, awesome, thank you.’ ”
Dermody ascended through Toronto’s system rather quickly this season, starting the year with advanced Class A Dunedin before getting call-ups to Double A New Hampshire and Triple A Buffalo.
With major league rosters expanding on Thursday, he made the jump he had dreamed about.
“It has been quite the road,” Dermody said in a release. “I am grateful for everything that has happened.”
The lefty relief specialist has gone 3-1 this season with a 1.82 ERA. He has struck out 47 hitters in 54.1 innings of work.
Dermody played for the Hawkeyes from 2010-13, working mostly as a starter. He won 15 games for the Hawks and finished in the school’s top-10 in innings, strikeouts, and appearances.
One of the most exciting things about the call-up is that Dermody will find himself in the middle of a postseason battle, with the Blue Jays vying for the AL East title.
Working as a lefty specialist in the AL East is an important role, with left-handed sluggers such as Chris Davis, David Ortiz, and the barrage of speedy lefties in the Red Sox outfield.
The best thing about the news was that he got to reveal it to his parents.
“That was a good call,” Dermody said in a release. “They put me on speaker [phone], and I could hear my mom in the background screaming and yelling. That was exciting.”
The excitement of the call-up will need to be turned into the focus of a pennant race — Dermody is already with the team in Tampa Bay for a weekend series against the Rays.
He said in the release the moment has not exactly sunk in yet and that he doesn’t want to do too much on the mound.
“My mindset once I step on the mound will be pitch to pitch,” Dermody said in the release. “You have to execute your pitch every time, especially at this level. It is about simplifying things and not moving too far ahead.”
It wasn’t all focus on this day however, as Dermody allowed himself to remember his dreams as a kid growing up in Norwalk, Iowa.
“This has been a dream since I was a kid in Little League,” he said in a release. “Being here now and its being reality, it’s surreal. It will sink in tomorrow once I hit the field.”
