All skilled athletes face some measure of adversity, whether or not it is on account of a stretch of powerful play or an damage. Few gamers have needed to cope with something as harrowing as what Patrick Copen has returned from.
Final August, within the midst of his first full skilled season, the Dodgers pitching prospect was hit within the face by a line drive in a Excessive-A recreation that completely value him the imaginative and prescient in his proper eye.
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However Copen has been undeterred. The 2023 seventh-round choose used his time away from the sector to sharpen his recreation and was in a position to return to the mound for Spring Coaching. Pitching higher than ever this season, Copen earned a promotion from Excessive-A Nice Lakes to Double-A Tulsa two months into the season.
Now the Dodgers’ No. 29 prospect — who’s more likely to considerably stand up the rankings in August’s rerank — will play on his largest stage but when his Drillers face the Frisco RoughRiders within the MLB Pipeline Prospect Showcase at 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday, stay on MLB Community and streamed on MLB.TV, MiLB.TV, MLB.com and the MLB and MiLB apps.
Armed with a 70-grade fastball as much as 99 mph and a slider and cutter that each flash plus, Copen was efficient in his first full professional season with a 3.59 ERA and 98 strikeouts to 54 walks in 92 2/3 innings. In 2025, he is harnessed his stuff for even higher outcomes in opposition to stiffer competitors. The 6-foot-6 righty has practically matched his strikeout whole (97) in simply 63 1/3 innings and sports activities a 2.42 ERA, though his management has wavered (6.25 BB/9).
The Marshall product credit the Dodgers for supporting him within the quick aftermath of the damage. Staff employees advised him he would proceed to pitch for the workforce, which enabled him to focus extra on how and when, relatively than if, he might return to the sector.
“All through the 2024 season, I spent the start of that dialing in my mechanics to get a superb really feel for when my mechanics went proper and when my mechanics have been going unsuitable, to really feel higher command and pitch motion and all that stuff,” Copen stated on MLB Community’s MLB Central. “Clearly, working by all of that within the season is a bit bit tough since you’re additionally attempting to develop in addition to carry out on daily basis. So after I was not in a position to play, I watched video of myself from an entire bunch of various angles and had conversations with coaches to see the place can I am going, the place can I take my supply to the place it is essentially the most environment friendly and the best, and I can be capable to most successfully get hitters out.”
Copen’s lack of imaginative and prescient in his proper eye takes away his depth notion, however he is discovered methods to remain efficient. His left eye is extra necessary for seeing residence plate, and he solely loses web site of his goal on the finish of his follow-through. However he is all the time shortly appeared up after he releases, in order that long-standing side to his supply is shortly paying off. More difficult is holding runners on second, since he cannot use the peripheral imaginative and prescient on his proper facet and has to completely take a look at runners.
Copen is keen to point out off his new self on a much bigger stage — and show that no impediment is just too huge to beat.
“If there’s one thing that you simply wish to do and also you really, in your coronary heart, assume that you are able to do it, then there’s nothing stopping you. All it wants is a few laborious work,” he stated. “But it surely’s not likely laborious work when that is the one factor that you simply dream of doing — you then’re not likely doing any work in any respect.”
