Family helps push St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Alex Reyes into first All-Star game outing
From the time he was a teenager, St. Louis Cardinals closer Alex Reyes dreamed — and was convinced — he would be an all-star.
Five tumultuous years of professional and personal struggle may have been enough to introduce doubt in others and cause him to drop from baseball’s collective radar, but he knew he belonged among the elites of the sport.
That’s where he found himself Monday, sitting at a table in Denver’s McGregor Square, next to Cardinals teammate Nolan Arenado and the rest of his National League cohorts who also were named to this year’s All-Star game.
“I’ve always had confidence in myself and my work ethic,” Reyes said. “My family has been a huge part of that. They’ve been pushing me to believe that.
“I think that’s what’s gotten me here, you know? It’s being able to think about that possibility ... not to basically give up on my career.”
Family is at the center of his All-Star experience as well as his life. Reyes said that he has tickets for 15 people to attend the festivities at Coors Field, including both his parents, his girlfriend, and his two children; his daughter, Aleyka, turns five years old in a matter of days, and his son, Alex Jr., is 1 year old.
The children were among the traveling party heading to Colorado from Chicago on a private flight arranged by Arenado, who described former teammate Troy Tulowitzki doing the same for him in 2015 for his first All-Star appearance in Cincinnati.
“I thought it was important,“ Arenado said, “(to) bring ‘A-Rey’ with us. This is his first (All-Star) game. He needs to enjoy and not have to worry about anything, bring his family. That’s just kind of how you do it.”
Arenado laughed as he described Reyes’s kids as, “fired up, running around, jumping around on the plane.” Aleyka, Reyes said, understands the importance of the event, and was anxious to arrive for reasons beyond getting to see her grandparents for the first time after an extended separation.
“She was super excited when we got the news,” Reyes said. “She understands what this is, and I’m excited for her.”
At just five months old, Aleyka was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, and she underwent treatment over a period of years at the same time her father was recovering from multiple arm surgeries.
Alex Reyes, clearly, is fully recovered, and a force in baseball. Aleyka Reyes is also fully recovered.
As Aleyka regained her strength, so too did Alex. And after missing the entire 2017 season along with most of 2018 and 2019, Reyes now finds himself only one short of tying LaTroy Hawkins’s record of 23 consecutive successful save opportunities to start a career.
He’s a rare example of a pitcher who’s fully developed even as he’s developing, an undeniable physical force whose tools once made him the top prospect in all of baseball and whose physical struggles unfairly forced him from too many radars.
That dogged perseverance is what leads him to view Washington Nationals starter Max Scherzer, who will start his fourth All-Star game for the NL on Tuesday night, as the player with whom Reyes would most like to huddle this week. He wants to discuss, in his estimation, the “‘F’ it mentality” that the legendarily fiery Scherzer brings to the pitching mound.
Nationals shortstop Trea Turner, who has familiarity with Reyes from spring trainings spent in competition along Florida’s Atlantic coast, sees some of that same fire in the righty who plays in St. Louis as he does in Chesterfield native Scherzer.
‘Electric stuff’
“He’s just got electric stuff,” Turner said. “I know he used to be a starter. Now he can just go one inning and he can kind of let it go.
“The game’s evolving, and you can get left behind sometimes, but he’s got that talent. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s figured it out.”
There are some things in baseball that almost no one can figure out. Los Angeles Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani is without a direct peer, displaying such an unusual skill set that American League manager Kevin Cash of the Tampa Bay Rays explained MLB’s plan to treat Ohtani as “two players” for Tuesday night’s game.
He’ll be the AL starting pitcher. And he was voted the starting designated hitter. And he’s hitting leadoff. All after competing in the Home Run Derby on Monday night.
Reyes, for his part, called Ohtani “sick,” and said he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hit enough homers to compete in a derby. By his estimation, his last home run came at age 15.
‘This is a huge honor’
The exposure to the other stars of the game is perhaps second in importance only to the family environment for Reyes’s week in Denver. He spoke of being in awe of the assemblage of talent on the bus which transported the NL team to Monday’s media day, and stopped short when he was reminded he, too, is among those stars; if he wasn’t, after all, he wouldn’t have been on the bus.
“This is a huge honor. I mean, it’s overwhelming to a certain extent,” Reyes said, shaking his head in slight disbelief.
Only slight, though. He knew this was coming some day.
