Red Wings pitcher Logan Verrett puts massive Aaron Judge homer aside as he eyes MLB return

Sal Maiorana
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

Logan Verrett was sitting in the Rochester Red Wings dugout Thursday afternoon, having a perfectly fine baseball conversation with a reporter, when he got ambushed by this question.

“Do you remember the last time you pitched in the major leagues?”

Verrett obviously knew it was 2017 when he was with the Baltimore Orioles, but the right-hander didn’t recall the exact game, or what happened in that game, until he was reminded. Then he remembered it in vivid detail.

On the afternoon of June 11 at Yankee Stadium, Verrett had taken over for struggling Orioles starter Kevin Gausman and had retired six of the eight men he had faced when rookie Aaron Judge came to the plate in the bottom of the sixth inning.

And in what turned out to be his last appearance for the Orioles or any other big league team, Verrett gave up what still stands as the fourth-longest home run hit in the Statcast tracking era which began in 2015, a 495-foot moon shot to left-center.

Logan Verrett was the winning pitcher on April 30, 2017, when the Orioles defeated the Yankees.

“Yeah, when I flew here to Rochester, I think I saw it next to the plane,” Verrett said good-naturedly. “Hey, he got me. I hung a slider and when you hang a slider to one of the best players in the game, that’s what’s gonna happen.”

Wings manager Matt LeCroy laughed when he heard that one and said, “Well, I was always told if you’re gonna give them up, give them up big, don’t give up a small one.”

Now, Verrett did want to set the record straight on the fact that Judge was merely evening the score against him.

Earlier that season on April 30 in his debut appearance for the Orioles, also at Yankees Stadium, Verrett faced Judge with the score tied 4-4, bases loaded and two outs in the 10th inning. 

“I struck him out to end the inning and we ended up winning that game,” Verrett said, a victory that went on his record after he came back out and set the Yankees down in order in the 11th to complete the 7-4 Baltimore triumph.

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The 495-foot Judge home run has been replayed ad nauseum on the YES Network, but Verrett long ago made his peace with it, saying that if you’re gonna give up such a momentous homer, “I’m glad it’s somebody who’s probably on his way to Cooperstown in the future.”

After that game the Orioles sent Verrett back to Triple-A Norfolk and he hasn’t been back in the big leagues since. 

Now, after a circuitous journey since the Judge home run finally landed, Verrett is taking a regular turn in the Red Wings’ rotation and hoping that the parent team Washington Nationals give him a long-awaited opportunity.

“It’s all out of my hands,” Verrett said of the decision making. “What I can control is coming to the field every day, getting my work in and when it’s my time to toe the rubber, going out there and competing and trying to give our team here a chance to win a ballgame.”

Verrett was a third-round pick in the 2011 draft by the Mets and he spent five years in their organization, with a short break in the middle. At the end of 2014 he was picked by the Orioles in the Rule 5 draft, then was selected off waivers in the spring of 2015 by the Rangers.

He pitched one game for Texas before being sent back to the Mets and over the next two seasons pitched in 49 games, 13 as a starter, going 4-9 with a 4.56 ERA in 2015 and 2016.

The Orioles re-signed him prior to 2017 and he spent that season bouncing up and down between Baltimore and Norfolk because he had options, which manager Buck Showalter acknowledged.

“He even said if you didn’t have options (meaning he was eligible to go back to the minors without becoming a free agent) we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Verrett said. “It was more, ‘You threw too many pitches so we need a fresh arm’ kind of thing.” 

But at season’s end, having pitched just four games for Baltimore, the Orioles designated him for assignment.

That offseason, MLB teams weren’t calling his agent, but two teams in South Korea did, and Verrett went to play for the NC Dinos.

“We had just had our first son, he was very young and so he was easy to travel with, and my wife’s very adventurous,” Verrett said. “She said absolutely, let’s do it. Financially, it’s a good move for us right now and you go over there and if everything goes well, you can stay over there and keep making good money or you can come back here and try to make a return.”

He went 6-10 with a 5.28 ERA but struck out 144 batters in 155 innings and that got him back on the MLB radar. Since then he spent 2019 in the A’s organization, underwent Tommy John surgery in the 2020 pandemic season, last year was in the Mariners’ system, and now he’s with the Nationals.

Logan Verrett, a key member of the Red Wings rotation, was a third-round pick of the New York Mets in 2011 and pitched in 49 games for New York.

“They called and said, ‘Hey, we like what you did last year, we’d like to offer you a contract and have you come in and compete for us,’” Verrett said. “If you do what you did last year, you have a good shot of helping out the big league team this year.”

Verrett hasn’t gotten the call yet, but he’s been a reliable pitcher for LeCroy and when he takes the mound Saturday night against Buffalo, he’ll bring a 3-3 record, 4.54 ERA, and a WHIP of 1.244 which needs to improve.

When asked if he has wondered whether he’ll ever get another chance, he said, “All the time. I’d be lying if I said I don’t think about it quite a bit. Am I too old? Am I still good enough? The negative thoughts, you just try to minimize them, try to squash them when they pop up. 

“The reality is I’m about to be 32 (on June 19), I haven’t pitched in the big leagues in five years. Every single player here in Triple-A has the ability to play in the big leagues, right. I know if I got the opportunity to go pitch in the big leagues that I’d be more than ready.”

For now, LeCroy is glad he has a veteran like Verrett to help mentor some of the young pitchers on the Wings roster, guys like high draft picks Cade Cavalli and Cole Henry who were taken in the first and second round of the 2020 draft and are considered the Nats’ top pitching prospects.

“He’s pitched in the big leagues, he knows his role, he knows what he’s doing when he’s pitching,” LeCroy said. “You know what you’re gonna get from Logan every time out. He’s gonna compete, he’s gonna have a good mix and hopefully get you through five or six innings. And I like him around the guys, a veteran that’s very professional in how he works and just a good guy for us to have around for our younger guys to watch.”

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.