A.J. Alexy has his feet firmly planted in the ground despite historic big league debut

“Play where your feet are.”

That’s the motto that’s kept Twin Valley grad A.J. Alexy grounded as he worked his way through the minor leagues, past a shoulder injury and a COVID shutdown, and now in the major leagues where he’s made baseball history with the Texas Rangers.

“I don’t like to think into the future or dwell in my past,” said the 23-year-old right-hander. “I like to be present where my feet are and work on whatever I need to work on in the moment.”

Alexy has enjoyed a historic beginning to his big league career: He has started and won his first two games, gone five or more innings in each, and has not allowed a run.

That’s never been done before in the modern era of Major League Baseball.

“It’s really cool,” Alexy said of the feat, “but very humbling at the same time.”

For a guy who didn’t attract pro scouts until his senior season, and who had never pitched above Class A before this season, it’s been a remarkable journey.

Alexy was shut down for most of the 2019 season by a lat strain on his pitching side and spent the spring and summer of 2020 at home in Honeybrook working on his own after COVID shut down the minor leagues and he wasn’t invited to the Rangers’ alternate training camp.

He made the most of an invite to the Instructional League last September. He reworked his throwing motion, going to a shorter arm path. That improved his control, always an issue, and helped increase velocity.

He showed enough to the Rangers’ brass that he was added to their 40-man roster last offseason. When the last-place club ran out of pitching last month and began to draw on its farm system Alexy got a call.

He did not disappoint, throwing five shutout innings and allowing just one hit in his debut Aug. 30 against the Colorado Rockies at Globe Life Field in Arlington.

A week later he started at Anaheim and was even better, going six innings and retiring the final 13 batters he faced. Again he allowed just one hit.

All of this might seem overwhelming to most but Alexy has taken it in stride.

“I’ve tried to keep the same mindset throughout the entire year,” he said. “Get in the zone as early as possible, and as often as possible. It makes pitching a lot easier when you’re not scared of contact.”

When he couldn’t throw over the final five months of the 2019 season Alexy decided to put his idle time into the game. He began working on the mental side of his game, worked with a team sports psychologist and read, among other self-help books, David Goggins” “Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your mind and Defy the Odds.”

When American League home run leader Shohei Ohtani stepped in the box the other night Alexy didn’t get caught up in the moment or try to over-think it. He blocked all of the peripheral stuff out and struck Ohtani out to end his stint.

“Once they get into the box, I try to execute my game plan,” he said, “and if it doesn’t happen, I get with my catcher and we try to work it to where it can work.”

Alexy admits he wasn’t so cool late last month when Round Rock manager Kenny Holmberg called him into the office and told him he was going to The Show.

“(I) went into shock,” he said. “Everything hit me at once. (You look back and think that) you’ve worked all this time, and now here’s your opportunity.”

Alexy wasn’t much to look at in high school. He was 5-6 as a freshman and not much taller as a sophomore. He went through a growth spurt that added five inches to his frame before his junior year and kept growing, to 6-4 by the time he was a senior.

In more recent years he’s filled out and gotten stronger, and with it his velocity has increased. He tops out at 98 mph. Add that to a curveball that can be downright nasty and a much-improved change-up and he’s got the pitches, according to the scout who signed him, to be a front-line pitcher.

“The stuff was always there,” said former Wyomissing pitcher Rich DeLucia, who pitched 10 years in the big leagues and scouted Alexy for the Los Angeles Dodgers. “What’s impressing me right now is he’s not walking (as many) guys. If he keeps the hit total down, and the walk total down, that’s a recipe for a top-of-the-rotation starter.”

Alexy’s third major league start could come Monday, at home against the Astros; that isn’t official yet. If he spins another gem he’ll be all over SportsCenter again, something he says still feels “very weird.”

Alexy was an 11th-round pick out of Twin Valley in 2016 and hasn’t garnered a lot of media attention until recently. He enjoyed his first national exposure but also realizes there’s work to be done on that front, too.

“I need a haircut,” he said after seeing himself on TV. “It’s been a while.”