Richland High grad gets call to pitch for San Diego Padres

For four glorious days this past week, Richland High graduate Eric Yardley was a member of the San Diego Padres in what many people in Major League Baseball call The Show.

Called up last Wednesday to make his Major League Baseball debut as a sidewinding relief pitcher, Yardley pitched against the Cincinnati Reds on one day, then against the Boston Red Sox the next.

The Padres sent him back to their Triple-A farm team in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday — ironically it was catcher Austin Allen, who played for the Tri-City Dust Devils in 2015, who took his place.

But by making his Major League debut, Yardley realized a life-long dream. He also said the numbers hit him over the weekend.

“I was the 19,635th player to make my debut in Major League Baseball,” Yardley said in a phone interview on Monday. “That number wouldn’t even fill half of a stadium. It’s really humbling. I was one of almost 20,000 people to do this over the last 100 years or so. (These last few days) have been a blast. It makes you want to get back there.”

Growing up in Richland

For a young kid growing up in Richland, Yardley idolized his older brother Brian.

“My brother is four years older than me, and he was part of that 2005 Richland High state title team,” said Yardley. “So I wanted to play on a state title team.”

Eric Yardley did that in 2007.

“My brother’s American Legion team also went to the World Series,” he said. “And a few years later the team I was on did too. Our 2009 Richland team also won another state title.”

That was also around the time he started thinking bigger.

“That sparked the thought of how far can I take this?”

After high school, that meant to Seattle University, which had only recently revived its baseball program at the time.

But after he finished his sophomore season, his coaches told him that it was likely he wouldn’t play for Seattle U anymore. The team was getting better and better recruits.

“And I’ll admit that I was not good enough to play Division 1 baseball,” Yardley said. “They said I wasn’t going to get to play anymore, but they still wanted to keep me around the clubhouse because they felt I brought something.”

They gave him one glimmer of hope: how about trying to dip down and throw your pitches sidearmed, or submarine-like?

“I said, ‘If that’s what it takes,’” he said.

Pitching adjustments

That’s not an easy adjustment, an overhand thrower to submarining.

“I was able to do it my junior year, but necessarily to competitively go out and pitch against the best in the Northwest,” said Yardley, who said he became good friends with a brick wall, just constantly throwing pitches at it as much as he could.

As an infielder for the Bombers and the Twin City Titans’ American Legion team, Yardley said he threw sidearm when he turned double plays. He took the mindset that he was turning a double play when he threw a pitch from the mound.

It got easier and easier, and by his senior season he was Seattle’s U’s closer, shutting the best in the Northwest down.

After college, though, Yardley never heard his name called in the MLB draft. That’s when he decided maybe getting his Master’s to teach might be the smart move.

The gist of it is the independent Pecos League came calling from the Southwest, and he took the offer to pitch for little money. Later that 2013 season, a Padres scout found him and signed him.

He’s been in the San Diego system ever since, and over these past seven years of toiling in the minors there have been very few times he’s thought about giving baseball up. And nobody would have blamed him if he had.

In organized baseball, the rule is the higher draft pick you are, the more chances you get to prove yourself to the front office types of the big-league team.

Undrafted free agent

An undrafted free agent, meanwhile, gets very few chances.

Yardley still has persevered through seven years.

“Guys like us, you are only going to get so many opportunities,” he said. “But those opportunities will show up.”

For Yardley, that was spring training in 2018 and 2019.

“I think I started feeling I could play up here in 2018,” he said. “Although I felt a little nostalgic with all these big names in camp.”

But this past spring, he said he came into camp feeling like he had nothing to lose.

“I was throwing well in Triple-A,” he said. “I knew I could have success up here.”

When it was announced that the Padres called him up, “My phone was blowing up. And I know social media has its negative points. But it also allowed me to get messages from guys in Seattle and the Tri-Cities.”

He’s appreciative of all the support, especially from his family.

“Between my wife Tia, my parents who still live in Richland, my brother, and my wife’s parents, I have an incredible support system,” Yardley said. “They’ve allowed me to go along this journey as stress free as possible. There were definitely a few times where I felt like I hit rock bottom, like when I’d get sent from Triple-A to Double-A.

“But all of my family was willing to support me.”

It helped that Tia has lived with him these past two years.

But minor-league ball players don’t make much money. It’s an almost subsistence salary. Wives, girlfriends or fiancées might have to get a job. Players might try to cram five of themselves into an apartment during the season. A lot of players have to get jobs in the off season.

“Having Tia by my side means we can budget things out together,” he said.

But being in the minor leagues means uncertainty.

“Once we get to August, Tia and I start discussing where we’re living in the offseason,” said Yardley. “We’ve lived back in Seattle where her parents live. Last winter we lived in Arizona so I could work out at the complex everyday.”

Yardley’s initial MLB stats have him with a 9.00 earned run average, with an 0-1 record, 3 innings pitched with two strikeouts.

Anyone who knows Yardley knows with more opportunities, those statistics will improve.

At El Paso, he holds a 2.63 ERA over 61.2 innings pitched in a hitter-dominant Pacific Coast League.

“I just have to keep working,” he said. “Keep doing what got me to the big leagues. There is a week left in the PCL, and in September when (MLB) rosters expand, maybe I’ll get called back up. I’ll just keep taking it game by game, pitch by pitch.”

Finding a way to get back to The Show.

This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 5:00 AM.