‘Roller coaster’ ride takes Idaho native from obscurity to MLB roster in just one year

NAMPA (Idaho Statesman) — The roller-coaster ride for Nampa native Zach Penrod reached a new high Saturday.

The left-handed pitcher made his Major League debut for the Boston Red Sox, throwing a scoreless eighth inning at Yankee Stadium. Not bad for someone playing in an independent league and considering retirement as little as a year ago.

“I keep using the term roller coaster because that’s the only way I can really describe it,” Penrod, 27, told the Boston Globe. “It’s ups and downs, being that I was thinking about being done at the start of the year last year. And then to find myself at Yankee Stadium, I think it’s something that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.”

The 34th Idaho native to reach Major League Baseball flew under the radar most of his life. After graduating from Columbia High in 2015, he spent two seasons at Corban University, an NAIA program in Oregon, before transferring home to Northwest Nazarene, where he pitched but was primarily an outfielder.

The Texas Rangers took a flier on the 6-2 lefty in 2018, signing him as an undrafted free agent. But he made only four appearances that summer before Tommy John surgery cost him the 2019 season, and the Rangers cut him ahead of the 2020 campaign.

Fighting to stay in the game, he joined the hometown Boise Hawks in 2021 after they lost their Major League affiliation. That marked the first of three summers with three different clubs in the independent Pioneer League, and he began to wonder whether it was time to give up his dream.

Then the Red Sox came calling. Boston needed arms to eat up innings for its low-level minor league clubs last summer. But with his mid-90s fastball, Penrod soon proved himself a steal. He made the Arizona Fall League’s all-star team, started 2024 in Double-A and earned a promotion to Triple-A in May.

The Red Sox moved him into the bullpen in Triple-A Worcester, and he soon hit 99 mph on the radar gun. He didn’t post sparkling numbers in Triple-A (5.93 ERA), but he continued to show he could overpower hitters, striking out 40 in 27 ⅓ innings for a strikeout rate of 13.2 batters per nine innings.

“Honestly, I kind of just went back to having fun playing the game,” he told the Boston Herald. “I think for a while there … I was just trying so hard to get picked up again. I felt like that was the goal that I needed to accomplish. But just finding myself and having fun and doing what I do — and remembering it’s a kid’s game and we’re all here to have fun and have a blast — has helped me out a lot with confidence.”

The call he waited his entire life came Friday night, but Penrod didn’t pick up. He didn’t recognize the number and was putting his newborn daughter, Noa, to sleep.

A second try by Red Sox officials finally got through, and he hopped a flight at 5:30 a.m. the next morning to join the Red Sox for their series at Yankee Stadium. He headed straight from the airport to the field.

“I couldn’t stop smiling, and then I went out to the field and just looked around for a second,” Penrod told the Boston Herald. “I was just stunned. It was a really special moment.”

He didn’t get much of a soft landing. After New York’s Aaron Judge doubled to lead off the eighth, Boston called on the left-hander to help seal an eventual 7-1 victory. Penrod struck out the first two batters he faced before a walk and a pop fly for a scoreless inning of work.

“Eight days ago, they had a baby, so today’s (the) second-best day of his life,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora told The Associated Press. “That’s the way we presented today. (He was) very calm on the mound. Then when he got the third out, he sat down on the dugout and he broke down. He broke down.

“I mean, we had so many stories about that the last few years — independent baseball, released, Tommy John, and then they show up to Yankee Stadium and then get three outs. That’s the cool thing about this.”

Penrod followed that with his second appearance Sunday, striking out one and inducing Giancarlo Stanton into a grounder for a scoreless ⅔ of an inning.

The first two appearances mark the start of a late-season audition with the Red Sox’s reeling bullpen. Boston relievers own baseball’s worst ERA since the all-star break, the Boston Herald reported. And entering Tuesday, the Red Sox remain four games out of the last wild card spot with 12 games remaining, making the postseason a long shot, at best.

You could say the same about Penrod. Yet here he is, walking into a big-league clubhouse, donning an MLB uniform and looking for one more ride on this roller coaster.

MORE IDAHOANS IN MLB

Penrod is one of three Idaho natives currently on a Major League roster.

Timberline grad Michael Stefanic comes with a Hollywood-worth story of his own. He went undrafted out of college before sending a homemade highlight reel to all 30 teams in hopes of earning a tryout. Six years later, the 28-year-old utility infielder is in the midst of his third season with the Angels, hitting .221 in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Coeur d’Alene native Kyle Manzardo made his MLB debut in May. Cleveland’s No. 2-ranked prospect struggled at first. But the Guardians recalled him Sept. 1, and the 24-year-old designated hitter is hitting .224 with two home runs and 10 RBIs in 43 games.