SPRINGFIELD, Mo–The Springfield Cardinals will continue their series with Wichita Frdiay night at Hammons Field.
The Wind Surge have won the last two games.
There’s always a lot of roster movement in minor league baseball.
Friday, the Cardinals promoted pitchers Grant Black and Ryan Loutos to Triple AAA Memphis.
Loutos is an undrafted free agent who’s having the summer of his life wearing the birds on the bat uniform.
Allow me to introduce Ryan Loutos.
He’s the Cardinals pitcher who left loot on the table…to pitch for us.
Dan Lucy:”Is it paying off?”
“Yea it paid off the moment I decided to be here. It’s 100 percent paid off so far,” said Cardinals pitcher Ryan Loutos.
The 23-year old whiz kid graduated from washington university in st louis with a computer science degree.
“Working on all the code that runs those applications from the server to actually what’s on your phone or what’s on the browser whatever,” said Loutos.
Loutos landed a software engineering job with a $70,000 to $80,000 dollar a year salary.
But he turned that loot down, in order to pitch for the Cardinals.
Loutos:”It’s kind of hard to put all my eggs in one basket. It didn’t cost me anything baseball wise to go and see what could happen.”
Wash U. produces doctors and engineers and the Bears are NCAA D-3 in athletics.
No scholarships.
Loutos was 11-1 with one save and a 1.33 ERA his senior season.
“We might not get a lot of fans. We might not play at the nicest stadiums in the world. But every game we go out there and it’s so much fun. But it’s no different then any other college program,” said Loutos.
Last summer’s major league draft came and went for Loutos, nobody picked him.
But then the St. Louis Cardinals called and offered him a minor league contract at a major pay cut from his other offer.
Loutos said yes despite the fact that he’s a Chicago native and his family cheers for the Cubs.
“We bought like 10 different Cardinals hats. And we all put them on. It was kind of a funny moment. Especially growing up in a family that liked the Cubs,” said Loutos.
The right hander throws a fastball in the 90’s and a slider.
The Cardinals moved him into the closer’s role this summer.
Loutos is 3-3 with a 2.21 ERA with seven saves.
And he’s jumped from Peoria to Springfield, and now to Memphis in three months.
“We gave him some responsibility. And we kept challenging him more and more. And he’s been able to get it done. When you are able to throw three pitches for strikes, it can definitely help you,” said Springfield manager Jose Leger.
And you don’t have to be a software engineer to see that money isn’t everything for this right handed hurler.
“Yea it was a good opportunity. But I’m happy where I am,” said Loutos.