‘I still have things to work on here’; Richard Fitts discusses future MLB call-up
The buzz surrounding the team that plays in Worcester this week was legit on Tuesday night when Roman Anthony and Kyle Teel made their long-awaited Triple-A debuts.
Anthony stayed busy in center field making plenty of catches on the run to settle into the game. He also went 3-4 at the plate. Teel might have gone hitless at the plate, but he settled in behind the plate and caught two familiar faces in Zach Penrod and Wyatt Olds along the way. Marcelo Mayer didn’t draw into the lineup while still dealing with a hip issue.
WooSox pitcher Richard Fitts represents one of the top pitching prospects in the organization and had a front row seat to things on Tuesday with all the cameras around. Teel let the media know he was now roommates with Fitts.
“He hasn’t moved the DJ stuff in yet,” Fitts said. “My wife lives with me, and she went to school to be a music teacher so we were both excited to be around it. I asked him last night if he would bring it into the clubhouse, but he doesn’t want to do that yet. He might bring it into the room to show us how it goes. We are excited to have him in there with us. I want to be a leader to all the guys in the clubhouse as much as I can being one of the younger guys in the clubhouse. I want to do what I can do what I can to be a leader for the younger guys coming up here.”
While the “Big Three” have drawn plenty of hype on social media, Fitts is no stranger to seeing his name thrown around by fans as potential pitching help for the big league club.
“I see it on the social media, but I still think I have some things I need to work on here to be a high level impact guy on the big league team,” Fitts added. “It’s not my decision ultimately but if it was, I would be up there right now. I want to help the team and help as much as I can. It is cool to see that people want to see me up there, but I want to be up there when the team needs me to be.”
The Auburn product has been paying a lot of attention to the big league promotions these days given they are guys he shares a locker room with.
“I pay a lot of attention to what happens with our team because these guys are my teammates,” Fitts noted. “Watching Mickey Gasper and Chase Shugart get up there recently has been very cool. I like to be one of the first guys who reaches out to them and do what I can to be there for them. If it opens up an opportunity for me down the line, that would be great too.”
Fitts knows he still has a few things to work on to get to where he needs to be to have his name called up next.
“To start the year, it was a lot of bigger issues,” Fitts said. “I was trying to fix my changeup, fix my sweeper, and get my fastball exactly how I want to. I am starting to get closer to where I want them to be at. Now, it is fine tuning them into how I can go deep into games with them for six or seven innings and get guys out for the third time through the lineup. I want to get everything perfect to where it feels like I am playing MLB the Show, where I am throwing it exactly where I want to every single time. If I can get to that point, I feel I would be doing pretty good.”
Getting a promotion to the majors while not on the 40-man roster is always a bit of a challenge, due to the roster usually being full and having to DFA another guy. As we just saw with Sogard, Gasper, and Shugart, the Red Sox have shown they are willing to give guys a shot who aren’t on the current 40-man.
“It gives all of us a little bit of hope,” Fitts said of non-roster guys getting a chance. “Gasper is a guy who works harder than almost anybody here. That is someone that I am trying to work as hard as if not harder than every single day. It is really cool to see that kind of guy get his shot. My wife was watching The Bachelorette and I had the game on the iPad and all of sudden, he entered the game. I start pausing her show and turning the game all the way up to see him have as good of an at-bat there. It goes to show that even guys who do really well here can compete at the big league level if you get the right shot.”
Given the time they spent together in the Yankees system, Fitts might be the most knowledgeable about Gasper’s background coming into this year.
“It didn’t surprise me at all, Fitts said of Gasper’s breakout year. “I purely say that because of how hard he works. Last year he caught my bullpens in the Yankees system, and I saw how hard he worked in the cages and in the bullpens. He is one of the guys that shines when he gets the opportunity to. If you give him the chance, he is going to do really well. You saw that when he got called up to here and he never turned back. We were all calling him ‘The greatest hitter of all time’. He never slowed down and got his shot in the majors because it is hard to keep a guy down who was hitting how he has.”
