Andy Pages is beating the odds again as Dodgers | College News

ST. LOUIS — Growing up on the western tip of Cuba, Andy Pages excelled at every sport he performed.

He was good at soccer and volleyball, arguably higher at basketball. But he liked baseball for causes that weren’t essentially restricted to the recreation.

Pages’ father, Liban, a carpenter who had a job repairing wood boats, helped make his son’s first bats by hand, utilizing leftover lumber given to him by buddies. Soon baseball turned the boy’s favourite pastime.

“When I was starting to play baseball in Cuba, when things were really bad, there were no bats. There weren’t things like that,” Pages stated in Spanish. “So he always tried to make me a bat so I could play.

“I became more motivated, and from that point on, we’ve been playing baseball.”

The sport ultimately proved to be a manner off the island for Pages, who has emerged as one of the Dodgers’ brightest stars in just his second season with the staff.

He entered the begin of a three-game sequence Monday in San Diego hitting .288 with 12 home runs and 39 RBIs, trailing only Shohei Ohtani in homers and matching Ohtani for third on the staff in RBIs. He’s also tied for second in stolen bases with six and has yet to be thrown out.

If he can keep constant, he has a likelihood to develop into the first Dodger middle fielder to hit higher than .250 with 25 homers since Matt Kemp in 2011.

Although Pages never performed in Cuba’s elite Serie Nacional, the proving ground for stars such as Yuli Gurriel, Yunel Escobar and Orlando “El Duque” Hernández, he turned one of the nation’s prime prospects after hitting .364/.484/.581 in a under-15 league.

That satisfied Pages (pronounced PAH-hays) he had a likelihood to be a large leaguer some day. So at 16, the Athletic reported, he organized to be spirited off the island alongside Jairo Pomares, one other younger Cuban star, touring through Guyana, Curacao and Haiti before crossing in the Dominican Republic. He then waited eight months before the Dodgers signed him as an worldwide free agent in March 2018, giving him a $300,000 bonus, more than 1,500 occasions the average annual wage in Cuba, according to CiberCuba.

Pomares signed with the San Francisco Giants at about the identical time, but while he stays in the minors, Pages’ climb to the majors was regular. He reached triple A by the begin the 2024 season. He didn’t keep at Oklahoma City long, however, hitting .371/.452/.694 with 15 RBIs in 15 video games to earn a call-up to the Dodgers.

Before his rookie season was over, Pages was a World Series champion. He paid a heavy price for that though, going seven years without seeing his household in individual.

“It was emotional since I hadn’t seen them for a long time,” stated Pages, 24, who returned to Cuba for the first time the winter before his big-league debut.

His sister, Elaine, a little one when he left “was already a full-grown woman.”

“So those memories came back to me, and they were quite — how should I say it? — quite strong for me,” stated Pages, who introduced his father a few of the machine-made bats he used in the minor leagues.

But if his father offered the spark that made his son a baseball participant, teammate Teoscar Hernández offered the help, steering and mentoring that made Pages an on a regular basis main leaguer.

“He’s played in the major leagues for a long time now,” Pages stated of Hernández, a 10-year veteran who signed with the Dodgers months before Pages made his big-league debut. “He’s been through a lot of bad times. I went through that at the beginning of the season, for example, and last year too. And he’s given me advice that’s helped me a lot to get through that time.”

With Pages’ household still in Cuba, Hernández has develop into a large brother as effectively as a teammate, taking him out for dinner on off days or just getting collectively to play video video games.

Andy Pages runs the bases after hitting a solo home run against the Athletics at Dodger Stadium on May 14.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“Getting through bad times is sometimes a little difficult when you’re alone, when you don’t have anyone to help you, to give you good advice, and to make you understand that sometimes things don’t happen when you want them to,” Pages stated.

And that’s labored out effectively for Pages. Three video games after Hernández returned from a rehab project final month, Pages began a streak that would see him hit in 13 of his next 14 begins, including 11 in a row, raising his average 24 factors to .293. He’s batting .379 with a team-high 11 hits in seven video games this month.

“We try to go out to my house. We go out to a restaurant with my wife, his wife. Just so we can get together, have time to enjoy and not think about baseball,” Hernández stated.

Pages isn’t the first participant to benefit from Hernández’s mentorship. During his six seasons in Toronto, Hernández took one other gifted rookie, fellow Dominican Vladimir Guerrero Jr., under his wing. Guerrero is now a four-time All-Star.

Hernández is still so revered in Toronto when the Dodgers performed there final season, some Blue Jays gamers wore his outdated uniform quantity during batting observe. Earlier this yr Guerrero supplied to buy him a $300,000 Richard Mille watch; Hernández joked he’d fairly have money as a substitute.

As the quiet Pages has grown more assured and comfy with the Dodgers, his play has improved. A speedy outfielder with a plus arm, he also can play all three positions.

And while he left Cuba, he never absolutely left it behind, having expressed curiosity in representing the nation in next yr’s World Baseball Classic. The resolution to go to the Dominican Republic as a teenager, after all, was a business one, not a personal one.

Pages would also like to deliver his household to U.S. some day, though that dream was dealt a setback final week when President Trump signed an govt order proscribing access to Cubans hoping to come to the U.S.

“Hope is always there,” stated Pages, who has overwhelmed impossibly long odds once. “But you have to follow the rules, get the papers, do whatever it takes to make sure everything’s OK. And then get here and stay here.

“I’m just trying, trying until they can leave.”