Pirates, Mexican ace faced long odds, long route
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Luis Heredia on a residential hill high atop the heart of Mazatlan, Mexico. -
Scouts with radar guns tracked Luis Heredia's every pitch during a start Aug. 19 in Mazatlan. -
Jesus "Chino" Valdez, the Pirates' Mexican scouting supervisor, is easy to find driving the streets of his native Mazatlan in his custom car. -
Luis Heredia pitches against South Korea in an international tournament Aug. 19 in Mazatlan. -
Luis Heredia, right, with his mother, Maria de Jesus Orosco
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MAZATLAN, Mexico -- Luis Heredia looks like a foreigner on his own field.
It is the fourth inning of a game between Mexico and South Korea, in an international tournament for 15-16 year-olds, played in his hometown, in front of 2,000 adoring fans, with school buddies among his teammates. But the fastball is being clocked at 93 mph -- breathtaking for Heredia's age -- and it snaps the poor catcher's mitt backward a full foot. The downward plane of his pitches, originating with his right hand high above the 6-foot-6 frame, confuses the amateur umpire, and few low strikes are called. Even the first baseman allows three pinpoint pickoff throws to elude him.
Heredia, now charged with three runs on one hit, is flipping the resin bag and kicking the rubber in frustration. His curveball goes flat, and the fastball command veers.
"The kid," Rene Gayo reminds, "just turned 16."
Gayo, the Pirates' Latin American scouting director, is seated behind home plate amid a dozen Major League Baseball scouts, all there to see Heredia. With each pitch, they raise their radar guns in unison, like a rifle squad.
Small wonder that, an hour before taking the mound, Heredia had said through a translator, "I want to do so well."
But he is not doing so well, and Gayo thinks he knows why.
"Just look at him," Gayo says. "This is a young man who, for years now, has been pitching to guys three or four years older than him. And dominating them. He's way beyond this."
As if to illustrate that, a few minutes later, Heredia freezes a diminutive South Korean batter with 93-mph heat on the outside corner for his final pitch. This time, the catcher bends without breaking, the umpire makes the right call, and the crowd stands and roars.
That was 10 days ago. On Thursday, Gayo and the Pirates completed a pursuit rooted in a decade-long relationship by agreeing to terms with Heredia and the Mexican team that owned his professional rights on a $2.6 million bonus, largest by far for an international player in the Pirates' history.
And the next step will, indeed, be "way beyond" those four-plus innings against South Korea: He soon will report directly to rookie-level Bradenton of the Gulf Coast League, becoming the Pirates' first prospect in the past decade to bypass the Latin American levels.
Never mind that Heredia, again, will be 3-4 years younger than his peers.
"Oh, I'm happy about that," he says. "I always like that."
To understand why, rewind to one afternoon last summer, when Heredia was asked to accompany Venados de Mazatlan, the city's professional team in the Mexican Pacific League, for an exhibition in nearby Apoderado.
Heredia long had hung around Venados' clubhouse, picking up pointers from a roster that, in the winter months, has included major-leaguers such as the Pirates' Evan Meek and Neil Walker. But this would not be about pointers: Heredia was told he would pitch.
"We were so scared," recalls Maria de Jesus Orosco, Heredia's mother.
They had no idea.
Just before the first inning, Heredia was told to take the mound for Apoderado, not Mazatlan, and his challenge suddenly went from facing a bunch of aging amateurs to current professionals.
Gayo, seated behind the plate, made eye contact with the overgrown child on the mound, grinned and gave a thumbs-up.
"Should have seen him," Gayo says.
First Published August 22, 2010 12:00 am
