LOS ANGELES – Like hundreds of professional players, Michael Petersen was looking for something to do, some way to keep in touch with baseball after Covid caused the minor-league season to be canceled in 2020.
So he went and terrorized some unsuspecting guys in an adult rec league in San Jose.
“A buddy of mine knew a guy who had an adult team and he was, ‘Hey, if you want to get innings, my buddy will hook you up.’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’” Petersen recalled now. “The first team I faced I just said I’ll get a couple innings in at the back end. I don’t need to start or anything.
“There wasn’t even a foul ball. It was just – three up, three down, three up, three down. One of the ladies on their side came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you should look into getting drafted.’ I was like, ‘I’ll keep my eye on that.’ She said, ‘How hard were you throwing – like, 88?’ ‘Yeah, something like that.’”
Petersen – who made his MLB debut for the Dodgers last week – was actually pumping high 90s fastballs at an assortment of delivery drivers, salesmen and other weekend warriors. At that point, the 6-foot-7 right-hander had already played five seasons as a pro – after being drafted three different times, once out of high school and twice out of college, the final time out of Riverside City College by the Milwaukee Brewers.
“It’s funny. You go up there and you see all the coolers of beer and everyone’s having fun. Then all of a sudden I come jogging out, throwing,” Petersen recalled, laughing at the memory. “I was trying to work on stuff so first inning I’d be throwing fastballs then the second inning I’d throw all curveballs. I wouldn’t pay attention to where I was in the lineup or anything. I was just pitching to what I wanted to do.
“So one of the guys in the lineup, I threw a curveball and he bails out. Hits the deck – strike one. I throw another curveball. He bails out, hits the deck – strike two. He turns and yells out at me, ‘What are you doing? Just throw a fastball, man.’ I didn’t realize he was the No. 9 hitter. He was the worst guy. So I throw a fastball. He doesn’t even get his foot lifted before it goes by him. He goes, ‘Alright, never mind’ and walks away.”
Petersen said the experience reminded him that baseball could be played just for fun. That it didn’t have to be a business.
Then baseball stopped being fun for him.
Pitching for the Colorado Rockies in spring training in 2021, he threw a pitch and felt something he had only heard about before.
“I felt all the stuff you hear about – I felt a pop (in his elbow), I felt the heat. But it didn’t hurt,” Petersen said. “So I throw another pitch and they came out because I was making a face. I was more pissed because I walked a guy. They were, ‘Are you alright?’ ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just annoyed.’ ‘Well, we saw you grabbing your arm.’ ‘Yeah, I felt a little pop and some heat.’ ‘We’re going to go get you an MRI.’”
Petersen had torn the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. Covid had taken one season away from him. Tommy John surgery would take two. From 2020 through 2022, Petersen only threw one inning in an official game – for the Rockies’ team in the Arizona Complex League at the end of the 2022 season.
“I was a free agent at the end of each of those years,” he said. “The first time it didn’t click that baseball might not be in my future. They spent so much money they’re going to re-sign me for nothing. The second time around it was, ‘Man, this might be it.’
“Coming back from injury, a lot of teams don’t give you any runway. It’s, ‘We’re glad you’re healthy. Now go home.’”
Petersen kind of did. The son of a Nigerian mother and an American father, Petersen was born in England. He moved to California as an infant and grew up there. But he was eligible to pitch for Great Britain in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
Great Britain didn’t last long in the tournament but Petersen made an impression. He pitched one inning against Team USA, hit 100 mph with his fastball – and blew three fastballs past Nolan Arenado for a strikeout.
“It felt good. It was such a long road,” Petersen said. “The funny part is I had no clue I was throwing that hard. After the inning one of my buddies came over and said, ‘Pumping 100s or what?’ I said, ‘I hope.’ ‘No, you were. I think you threw one pitch under 100.’ Oh, this is interesting.”
After making it to Triple-A for the first time in 2023, Petersen became a minor-league free agent again after the season – and the Dodgers were interested.
“During the offseason when we started to look at some minor-league free agents that we felt had some good ingredients and some upside, we had done some homework on him and knew it was a big arm, had been in some tough pitching environments,” Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes said. “At that point, we thought there were some levers to pull here with the slider, his delivery consistency. He came in and worked his butt off then has done nothing but dominate at Triple-A.”
Petersen had a 1.61 ERA with 10 hits allowed and 31 strikeouts in 22 ⅓ innings for Triple-A Oklahoma City when he finally got the call to the major leagues. He made his debut last week, ironically, in Colorado where some of his old minor-league teammates were now playing.
“Warming up to go in, I was calm,” Petersen said. “First pitch Barnesy is back there warming me up because Smith was still getting ready. I push a fastball. It hits the glove and tips off. It was – instantly I realized what was going on. It was like a splash of cold water. I started looking around, ‘Oh my goodness, this is a big-league stadium. Oh my goodness, this is a game.’”
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He wound up going two innings and getting the win in a game the Dodgers won with seven runs in the ninth inning. Saturday against the Angels, he pitched a 1-2-3 inning in relief. At 30 years old, with his third organization after nine years in the minor leagues – Petersen is finally a big-leaguer.
“Knowing that he’s been through what he’s gone through and has been in the minor leagues as long as he has, there’s some real grittiness there,” Gomes said.
Petersen is grateful for where his long road has led. But he can’t help lament the delayed arrival in the big leagues.
“What sucks is if I hadn’t gotten hurt at the exact time I got hurt, the path kind of made sense,” he said. “I was 25, 26, 27. I was starting to figure it out, starting to work my way then all of a sudden I lost two years plus Covid.
“I’m not whining about it. There are kids that lost a lot more important times in their lives. But, man, did it suck.”
UP NEXT
Dodgers (LHP James Paxton, 7-1, 3.65 ERA) at White Sox (LHP Garrett Crochet, 6-6, 3.25 ERA), Tuesday, 7:1:0 p.m., SportsNet LA, 570 AM