Ballou on Baseball 5/25

WORCESTER - This city and the state of Iowa have one thing in common, Route 20, or at least they did until April when Matt Dermody made his WooSox debut.

Route 20 skims Worcester’s southern boundary as it makes its way from Boston to the Pacific Ocean. En route it bisects Iowa from Dubuque in the east to Sioux City in the west, about 75 miles north of Dermody’s hometown of Norwalk.

Dermody is 32, a tall lefty who has been one of the WooSox’ best pitchers in 2023, perhaps the best. To date he is the only born-and-raised Iowan to play for Worcester. Michael Wacha was born in Iowa but his family headed south to Texas when he was three.

The state is home to the Field of Dreams and was the birthplace of Bob Feller but corn is its main crop, not major league baseball players. Dermody was a multi-sport high school athlete who was recruited to play wide receiver at Drake University but chose baseball.

“I thought I could get farther,” he said.

He was a great hurler and hitter at Norwalk High, once hitting 13 homers in a season and striking out all 18 batters he faced in a high school game. That was a summer time game, by the way, as Dermody explained.

“In Iowa,” he said, “the high school season is in the summer which is different from all the other states. It runs from May 20 to the end of June with playoffs in July. That’s one reason I like baseball so much. It was was the only sport I could play without worrying about schoolwork.

“It was just baseball and that was so much fun.”

He played college ball at the University of Iowa and was eventually drafted four times. Dermody finally signed with the Blue Jays in 2013 and has pitched for them and the Cubs in the majors, pitched in Japan and Korea, and pitched for Sugar Land when it was an independent team.

Last year, Dermody spent the summer living in the basement of his parents house but that’s not because he was a failure-to-launch guy. He played for the Cubs’ Triple A team in Des Moines, so could live in his hometown.

“It was a little weird at first,” he said. “Usually when I go home to Des Moines I’m in vacation mode, so this time I had to switch my train of thought to — now I’m here to work.”

He worked well. Dermody was 6-3 for Iowa with a very nice 3.74 earned run average.

He grew up a Cubs fan but Norwalk is a long drive from Chicago — actually from any major league team. The Royals are about 2 1/2 hours away and when Dermody and his dad, Pat, went to a game there, Mr. Dermody took a foul ball from Ichiro right in the gut.

Even worse, somebody else got the ball.

Dermody signed a minor league deal with Boston on January 25. He is not living at home this year, although he did spend two years with Hyannis in the Cape League so he knows the Commonwealth at least a little bit.

Worcester makes it two Bay State teams for Dermody. If he keeps pitching the way he has here, Boston might be a third one.

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CATCHING UP WITH….

Marwin Gonzalez, who has 11 years in the majors and got into two games with Worcester in July of 2021, is playing for Orix in Japan. Gonzalez was 2 for 6 with a homer during his brief time here.

Catcher Chris Herrmann, 35, who hit the first home run in WooSox history, is with the Kansas City Monarchs of the independent American Association. With their season just starting, Herrman is batting .500 (14 for 28) with 14 RBIs in eight games.

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The WooSox are 25 games into the ABS ball-strike experience. That is a small sample size, to be sure, but the results so far are pretty even. Worcester is 6-6 with the computerized ABS system. The combined totals — both teams — in those 12 games are 107 walks, 224 strikeouts.

Worcester is 9-4 in 13 games with human umps under the challenge system. Those combined totals are 109 bases on balls, 229 strikeouts.

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Bradley Zimmer, the newest member of the WooSox, is the 10th Worcester player who was a first-round draft pick. Five of those players were drafted by the Red Sox. That list includes Matt Barnes (2011), Michael Chavis (2014), Jay Groome (2016), Tanner Houck (2017) and Triston Casas (2018).

The other five are Zimmer (2014, Indians); Michael Wacha (2012, Cardinals); Christian Arroyo (2013, Giants); Christin Stewart (2015, Tigers); and Hudson Potts (2016, Padres).

Groome is the highest pick to play for Worcester. He was taken 12th overall in 2016.

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TRIPLE A TRIVIA QUESTIONS

1. Who is the last Red Sox Triple-A manager to win Baseball American’s Minor League Manager of the Year Award?

2. Who holds the Worcester Red Sox record for most career home runs by a switch hitter?

ANSWERS BELOW

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UPCOMING….

The WooSox are looking at a 12-game road trip, their longest of the year and will not return to Polar Park until June 6. Their six-game series this week is at Scranton-Wilkes-Barre. Worcester is 8-10 at PNC Park in two previous seasons.

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TRIVIA ANSWERS

1. Gary DiScarcina was voted the best manager in the minors in 2013 when he guided the Pawtucket Red Sox to an 80-63 record and first-place finish.

2. Eight different WooSox switch hitters have hit home runs for the team and Yolmer Sanchez, who played here last season, leads with nine.