If he’s still on the team when the Mets travel to Colorado Thursday night, RHP Colin Holderman will get to live the life of luxury, flying on the team charter and staying at a five-star hotel in Denver.
Quite the contrast to where he was just hours before his MLB debut Sunday at Citi Field: in an Uber, on the way from Scranton – where the Syracuse Mets were in town to play the RailRiders – to Queens.
“It was a white 2010 Camry, as “Show” as it gets,” Holderman joked after pitching a scoreless inning in his MLB debut Sunday. “But it was great, I loved it, and we had a great conversation all the way here.”
The 26-year-old, who was the Mets’ ninth-round pick in 2016 out of Southern Illinois, got a call from Mets farm director Kevin Howard early Sunday morning, alerting him that he was headed to Queens. The Mets put Tylor Megill on the IL with right biceps inflammation, and chose to add Holderman from Triple-A to add an arm in the bullpen.
“I woke up early for breakfast because we had an early game, and got the call,” Holderman said. “I was fortunate we didn’t go out (Saturday) night because I would’ve gotten zero sleep, but I was able to show up well-rested.”
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Holderman grabbed everything he had packed for Syracuse’s road trip and hit the road, arriving in the first inning. He had a bite to eat and stretched out before playing a little bit of catch and heading out to the bullpen, and ended up making his MLB debut in the ninth with the Mets trailing 8-5.
“Not the Sunday I expected,” he joked.
Despite the whirlwind, Holderman has a great story, the ball from his first MLB strikeout, and thanks to the bump in MLB minimum salary, an extra $3K or so in his pocket that he didn’t have when he woke up Sunday.
And, even better, no bill for the roughly 150-mile ride from NEPA to Citi Field, which with gas and tolls could run a good couple hundred bucks.
“The Mets took care of that,” Holderman laughed. “Especially with gas these days, I didn’t want to look at that bill!”
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