DETROIT — Jack Leiter was little more than a toddler when he approached a preschool classmate and asked, “What team does your dad play for?”
That is how ingrained baseball was in the Leiter family. That is how normalized the expectation of becoming a major-league pitcher always felt.
“I just thought everybody played baseball,” Leiter said Wednesday at Comerica Park. “For the 5-year-old me it was an expected thing. As I got older it was a dream, a goal, and then you start to visualize it, and then it becomes a reality.”
Thursday in Detroit, that pitcher hopped and skipped to the mound before the rest of his Texas Rangers teammates. He warmed up and sweat glistened off his forehead. He struck out his first major-league batter on three pitches.
Jack Leiter’s 1st MLB Strikeout.
3 Pitch K. pic.twitter.com/Tuv7R75ddS
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 18, 2024
For so long that sort of ease was the entirety of the Jack Leiter story. Smooth and dominant. Predestined to do one thing extremely well. Thursday the Leiter family made history. Jack’s father, Al, and Al’s brother, Mark, both pitched in the major leagues. Thanks to Jack and Mark Leiter Jr., the elder Leiters became the first set of brothers ever to produce sons who have also pitched in the majors.
“There’s a lot of pitching in our family, pitching conversations,” Leiter said.
Seeing Leiter reach this stage was no surprise to anyone who has followed along. Leiter was a highly regarded prospect with a 0.65 ERA as a New Jersey high schooler. He threw 20 2/3 consecutive hitless innings at Vanderbilt. He was drafted No. 2 in 2021 and came to the Rangers with outsized expectations.
His first major-league start, though, ended up being a trying outing. Over the past two years, this has become the new challenge in the life of Jack Leiter. What happens after you fail?
When the walks piled up and the runs kept crossing the plate, Leiter heard it over and over. This is gonna make you better.
“In the moment,” Leiter said, “you don’t really want to hear it.”
The right-hander with the fastball that fights gravity was billed as a potential star when he was drafted. But two years into his pro career, he was falling down prospect rankings, most recently ranked the Rangers’ No. 14 prospect by The Athletic. His acclaim went quiet as Leiter struggled to harness the fastball command that once made him arguably the draft’s most projectable pitching prospect. He walked 5.4 batters per nine innings in 2022 and 5.2 in 2023. He had a 5.54 ERA in his first pro season and a 5.19 ERA in his second year.
“I had stretches in college where I had some shaky starts. It’s pitching,” Leiter said. “But nothing like what I went through the first two years in the minor leagues.”
The Rangers twice put Leiter on the developmental list last season to solve his command woes, once in June and again in July. The development list is a player-development assignment aimed at improvement. Objectively, improvement is exactly what Leiter needed.
“Going into (2022) I had the highest of expectations,” Leiter said. “And then you kind of get punched in the mouth over and over again, and you start to realize, ‘OK, what can I do better?’”
Upon this deep examination, Leiter’s mechanics cleaned up. There were subtle changes to his posture and the rotation of his lower body. Leiter, though, says the biggest difference came in his mental approach.
“I think it was really important,” Leiter said of encountering failure. “From that, my whole new process and routine was kind of born. I don’t know if I would have adopted that until later on in my career if I hadn’t gone through those struggles.”
The mindset of a competitor who had never encountered failure turned into a deeper craftsmanship. Two years ago, Leiter said, he went into every outing “focusing on just dominating the hitters and wanting to throw a complete-game shutout, no-hitters, all this stuff.”
Over time it evolved. “It was taking a step back, understanding that none of that happens if you’re focusing on those things versus focusing on ‘this pitch,’” Leiter said.
And just when it seemed Leiter’s career was crumbling, something funny happened. He showed up to spring training throwing bullets. The advanced, fast-moving pitcher the Rangers drafted reappeared. He was pushing for a roster spot by the conclusion of spring. And though he didn’t ultimately make the roster cut, the Rangers departed Arizona feeling excited about Jack Leiter all over again.
“The way he was throwing the ball in spring training, I knew he’d be up here at some point,” manager Bruce Bochy said.
With his mechanics cleaned up and his mental process refined, he went to Triple A and further proved he was ready for the major leagues. In his first three outings, Leiter pitched a combined 14 1/3 innings. He walked only three batters and struck out 25.
“He spent a lot of time this winter (getting) himself back to being the guy the Rangers drafted two years ago,” Bochy said.
Tuesday morning, Leiter was planning to drive himself from the Triple-A site in Round Rock, Texas, to the team’s next series in Sugar Land, just outside Houston. The night before, Round Rock manager Doug Davis texted Leiter: Just stop by the field first.
Leiter arrived at the ballpark the next morning. He entered Davis’ office and found the entire coaching staff waiting. They informed him he was going to start in Detroit on Thursday.
“It was a shock,” Leiter said, “but it was awesome.”
Naturally, Leiter’s first call was to his father, the man who pitched in 19 MLB seasons, made two All-Star games, won two World Series and threw a no-hitter.
“It’s definitely pinch-yourself stuff,” Al told NJ.com. “A proud dad moment. … I definitely got teary-eyed because I know the work that it takes to achieve this. And they just don’t give these out.”
The call typified the emotions that come with major-league debuts. Pride. Reflections on playing catch in the yard. A sense of achievement. It’s special even for someone like Jack Leiter, someone who foresaw this day long ago.
“It was a long conversation,” he said. “I was kind of blacked out mentally at that point.”
Soon enough, Leiter was on the mound in Comerica Park, and his father and more family watched on from a suite.
Leiter’s three-pitch strikeout of Riley Greene looked like it might set the tone for a dazzling day. But by the second inning, Leiter was in trouble. He walked Colt Keith to lead off the inning and surrendered two singles, a double and a triple before finally recording the third out. Leiter recovered with a 1-2-3 third inning.
But by the fourth inning Thursday, Leiter handed the baseball to Bochy and walked off the mound and into the dugout. A ball Leody Taveras misplayed at the center field wall allowed two runs to score. And rather than ending the inning, that play set up a Spencer Torkelson double that concluded Leiter’s day with a severely blemished line: eight hits, seven earned runs, three walks and three strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings in the Rangers’ 9-7 win over the Detroit Tigers.
Jack Leiter sits in the dugout after leaving Thursday’s game in the fourth inning. (Duane Burleson / Getty Images)
Leiter’s fastball and slider at times showed their flash. But more often his best offering was hit and hit hard. The Tigers had an average exit velocity of 99.2 mph on 11 balls in play against Leiter’s vaunted fastball.
The Leiter we saw Thursday reflected both sides of his story: Electric at times. Erratic at others. He left the game with a sour taste. “A lot of frustration,” he said.
After the game, Leiter gathered with his family on the field. He said that is the moment he will remember most.
He will be back on a major-league mound soon, with one more lesson in hand.
(Top photo: Duane Burleson / Getty Images)
