Walking up to the pitcher’s mound in Detroit’s Comerica Park, Philadelphia Phillies’ pitcher Michael Mercado (’17) was surprisingly unruffled as he stood in front of a crowd of nearly 40,000 people, about to pitch for the first time in the major leagues. Leaving most of his jitters in the bullpen, he said he felt ready to face the Detroit Tigers, June 24.
“The shock didn’t really hit me until after,” Mercado said. “It wasn’t that I blocked out the mound, but I think I was focused on [the fact] that I had done this before.”
Mercado was called up to the major leagues to fill in for injured Taijuan Walker, and pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning, highlighted by striking out the first Major League batter he faced, Carson Kelly.
Getting to this moment, however, was a long journey for Mercado, who joined Escondido’s Little League relatively late, when he was 10 years old, and a couple years later, a competitive travel ball team.
“That was actually a big decision that led me to Westview over the high school that I was originally zoned for, Del Norte,” Mercado said. “My family moved into the Westview zone just so that I could go there.”
Mercado said that Westview had a better baseball program than Del Norte. He had also known some of the coaches at Westview from his travel ball team, some of whom he still keeps in contact with: namely Patrick Edwards and current Westview coach Brian Stimpson.
Mercado started on the freshman team and played there for about half of the season before being called up to varsity.
“[Being pulled up] was a learning experience,” Mercado said. “I remember we had more than 10 seniors on the team that year. However, it was good for me to get my feet wet. I went into my sophomore year knowing ‘Okay, this is the level [I need to get to].’”
Mercado continued to compete for the varsity team in his sophomore year, which he said was a turning point in his high school career as his skills improved dramatically.
“[That was] when I broke out, I guess you could call it,” Mercado said. “That’s when I started to get looked at by colleges.”
One such college was Stanford, where Mercado committed his sophomore year. However, following his senior year, instead of attending Stanford, Mercado was drafted and decided to go pro.
“I knew eventually that I wanted to play professional baseball, and that opportunity came in high school,” he said. “I thought to get a bit of a head start on the kids that come out of college. I thought [playing professionally] was the ultimate goal, so why not start now?”
The Tampa Bay Rays drafted Mercado 40th overall in the 2017 draft, and he debuted in the minor leagues with their rookie-level Gulf Coast Rays team.
Mercado said that the minor leagues were wildly different from high school baseball, especially the time commitment.
“The minors are a total grind,” Mercado said. “The high school season is 30 games, you’re playing three times a week. Obviously, you’ve got school on your plate, which is super important, but going into the minor leagues, it’s a job. You’re doing it every day. You might have one day off a week.”
Due to the constant physical strain, in 2019, Mercado suffered an elbow injury and required Tommy-John surgery, a common elbow surgery for pitchers. The pandemic and his recovery impacted his next few seasons. However he said that the long recovery had a positive side too.
“I’ve always been pretty tall, but I was pretty thin coming out of high school, and that [break] allowed me to take some time to put on weight, gain strength, just kind of the off-the-field stuff that’s harder to do when you’re playing,” he said.
Mercado truly got back into the swing of things in the 2022 season.
“[That] season was pretty successful on the field, but I was also feeling good overall, development-wise,” Mercado said. “[Going] into the 2023 season, I noticed a jump in my fastball velocity, which is super important.”
Following that successful season, Mercado was somewhat unexpectedly traded to the Phillies in November 2023. He was put onto their 40-man roster, available to be pulled up to the major leagues when needed, but was playing for triple-A level Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
Then, June 23, 2024, seven years after he had been drafted, Mercado got the call.
“My dad thought I was joking when I told him,” Mercado said. “It was really cool. It was kind of one of those very surreal moments that you’re like, that just happened?”
He said that meeting the star-studded team was a little intimidating.
“The Phillies have so many guys on their team that have been playing in the major leagues for a long time,” Mercado said. “You’ve got celebrities basically.”
At his Detroit debut, two Westview coaches were there in the stands: Stimpson and Edwards. Looking back, Mercado said the foundation that these coaches and the Westview team created for him was invaluable to his career.
“I think they made baseball at Westview enjoyable and taught me how to develop routines and overall [how to] be prepared every day,” Mercado said. “Building that foundation at Westview has really helped my pro career. Now they’re people who I can have conversations with about certain pitches and games.”
Mercado played four games in the major leagues before returning to the triple-A level. He recorded his first big-league win in his first-ever Major League start, July 2, against the Cubs when he pitched five innings of two-hit ball.
“I was up there for almost a month, which is great,” Mercado said. “When they need me, I’ll be ready. That’s kind of the game you play when you’re at this point. You’re already on the roster, just waiting.”
Mercado said that he is hopeful for the upcoming seasons, yet proud of how far he has come.
“I remember just getting on the mound and thinking, ‘oh my god, this is it, I made it,’” Mercado said. “No matter what anybody tells me in my life, I know that I did it. Nobody can ever take that away.”
