On Monday night, Moises Ballesteros was in the Triple-A Iowa clubhouse, playing a videogame — as luck would have it, MLB The Show — when he got the news that he was headed to the real show.
Ballesteros said he dropped the game controller on the desk when Iowa Cubs manager Marty Pevey broke the good news to him.
“I was shocked for five or ten minutes,” he said.
The timing of this news made it even sweeter. Ballesteros’ parents, Harry and Andry, had just traveled from their home in Venezuela to Iowa to see their son play, arriving on Monday in time to get the word from Ballesteros that they would need to go a little farther to watch him in Chicago instead.
It was a promotion bound to happen, despite the fact that as a catcher, Ballesteros does not have a lot of room to get playing time in the major leagues. But Ballesteros has sort of forced his way onto the big league roster, slashing .368/.420/.522 with 4 home runs and 18 RBI through 34 games in Triple-A this season. Though the Cubs already have two catchers on their roster who can hit pretty well themselves, it was hard to ignore Ballesteros’ production when the decision was made for who would take Ian Happ‘s spot while he is on the injured list with an oblique strain.
That move is retroactive to May 10, which means Happ could be back in just a week or so, but Ballesteros has his sights set on forcing the Cubs to keep him around beyond Happ’s return. His goals for his time on the big league roster are simple:
“To stay here in the show,” Ballesteros said.
In order to do that, he will have to stay productive at the plate and keep putting up the kind of numbers that got him the call in the first place. The Cubs have not been hurting for offense this season, but any team can use a guy with an OPS well over .900 in the lineup, especially a team looking to stay atop a division that is growing increasingly tight as the season wears on. The tricky thing will be finding him time in the lineup on a regular basis because Ballesteros can only catch or be the designated hitter. Ballesteros said he has not yet had any specific conversations with manager Craig Counsell about how he will be used defensively, but with Miguel Amaya and Carson Kelly around, it would seem that the primary role for Ballesteros will be as a designated hitter.
As for his first major league at-bats on Tuesday night against the Marlins, Ballesteros didn’t get the results he or the team were hoping for. He grounded out each time he came to the plate, and two of those were in high-leverage spots: once for an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded in the fourth inning, and once in the ninth inning that nearly had a similar result, but that time he just beat out the throw to first on a fielder’s choice.
“Yea, it wasn’t a good night,” Counsell said. “He hit four ground balls. Got a win, turn the page over to the next one.”
Ballesteros said after the game that he was nervous, especially stepping into the batter’s box in his first at bat. It’s an understandable feeling, especially given the whirlwind he had been through in the 24 hours leading up to that moment, but the expectations for him at the plate are high. Without a steady spot to play on defense, Ballesteros has to come through with his bat.
That means that when he gets chances like a bases loaded, one out, tie game plate appearance like the one in the fourth inning, or like coming to the plate with a ninth-inning rally brewing, Ballesteros needs to produce quality at-bats. That’s something that will probably come with more experience for the 21-year-old, and being faced with those moments in Tuesday’s 5-4 walkoff win will help.
“Those are the moments that the big leagues offer, that this place offers,” Counsell said. “They change you. They just do. They change all of us, and I think going through them more gets you a little more comfortable.
“He’ll tonight at home, I’m sure, go over his feelings in those spots and get better the next time.”
The two at-bats that followed Ballesteros in the ninth inning provided good models to follow. Nico Hoerner ripped a single to center field that scored Carson Kelly and trimmed the deficit to one run, and then 40-year-old Justin Turner went to the plate with runners on the corners and lifted a game-winning base hit to the grass in left field.
Turner’s at-bat, in particular, is the kind Ballesteros can learn from. Where the rookie struggled with hitting the ball on the ground all night, Turner knew the game plan against Marlins closer Jesus Tinoco and looked for something he could do the right kind of damage with.
“That guy has a good sinker, and he’s got a high ground ball rate. Obviously first and third, one out, he’s trying to get me on the ground,” Turner said. “So I’m trying to look for something up in the zone and trying to get something in the air [to] the outfield.”
Ballesteros said his parents arrived in the United States on Monday, having never seen him play professional baseball outside of Venezuela. They are in the country for a month, so there will be time to see him make good on his goal of sticking in the major leagues.
