HOUSTON — Tyler Ivey is at peace, but sometimes ponders his past as a passionless pitcher who still reached the pinnacle. Adrenaline aided Ivey through his major-league debut in his hometown, the sort of storybook tale only this sport seems to write.
On the day it unfolded, Ivey weighed 180 pounds and could not feel his fingers. Burnout and a barking elbow badgered him before and throughout the game at Globe Life Field on May 21, 2021. Ivey could not spin the baseball but still managed to survive into the fifth inning. After manager Dusty Baker pulled him, Ivey exited the mound with a wide grin.
Tyler Ivey smiles in the dugout after leaving a game against the Rangers in the fifth inning on May 21, 2021. (Kevin Jairaj / Imagn Images)
For many, it is their final image of a man who disappeared. Houston demoted Ivey to Triple A following the game, but he didn’t report within the requisite three days. He doubted whether he wanted to continue playing. Doctors diagnosed Ivey with thoracic outlet syndrome, finally solving his physical problems. The mental obstacles remained.
“One thing you can’t fake is passion,” Ivey said last month. “And I just don’t think I had the drive and the passion at that point to give my all or give my best to be at the top of the game and compete at that level. Even if I wanted to have it, it just wasn’t there at the time.”
So, 12 months after making his major-league debut, Ivey left the sport. He became a salesman, first of life insurance and, for a short time, solar panels. He married a longtime friend named Audrey, welcomed a son named James and made his family’s home in a tiny Texas town called Pottsboro.
“I just wanted to go have a simple life, spend time with my friends and family and see how God’s plan worked out for me,” Ivey said.
Ivey presumed it would not include baseball. After he retired, he swore off watching the sport, save the Astros’ annual playoff run. Once regarded as one of Houston’s premier starting pitching prospects, Ivey seemed content never to step on a mound again.
Now, it is his ultimate goal. Two years after he walked away, Ivey is attempting a baseball comeback. A slew of serendipitous encounters have allowed him to see the sport from a different perspective. An impromptu start for a collegiate summer league team helped Ivey, 28, to reignite his passion.
“There were some synchronicities that happened,” Ivey said. “And everything I did, everywhere we went, all roads led back to baseball.”
Ivey decided to quit during the first week of May 2022. His parents, Jon and Michelle, visited him throughout the week in Sugar Land after Ivey informed them it “may be the last time” they could watch him pitch.
That Sunday, on Mother’s Day, Ivey threw 59 pitches across 2 1/3 innings in his final professional appearance. After the game, he entered Triple-A manager Mickey Storey’s office and had what Ivey described as a “great conversation.” According to Ivey, he and the organization “left on really good terms.”
“They understood. There was no animosity on either side,” said Ivey, Houston’s third-round draft pick in 2017. “I still got tons of love and respect for them. They gave me a shot.”
No single reason exists for Ivey’s decision. He pitched through elbow pain for most of the 2020 and 2021 seasons, but hid it from the team for fear of losing his place within its hierarchy. Days after making his major-league debut, Ivey was further staggered by a family tragedy. The stresses of playing during a pandemic took a toll, as did strain from his decision not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Trouble sleeping and eating left Ivey a shell of the person who entered professional ball. He weighs 205 pounds now — 25 pounds heavier than when he debuted in Arlington.
Ivey made eight appearances spanning 18 2/3 innings after that start against the Rangers, including five in Triple A at the beginning of the 2022 season. To hear him describe it, no single inflection point precipitated his decision, nor did one particular aspect of his predicament outweigh the other. An accumulation of it all became too much for Ivey to bear — and most around him knew it.
Three days after Ivey retired, an unexpected phone call interrupted a day at the gym. Ivey dropped everything to answer when he saw Baker’s name on the caller ID.
“We know you need a break. We get it,” Ivey recalled Baker telling him. “But the body, sometimes it needs some rest and sometimes it miraculously heals itself. And if that were to happen, you never know, a few years from now, you might get a call. At least consider it.”
“Absolutely,” Ivey answered. “Anything for you.”
Last summer, Ivey volunteered to help one of his neighbors coach a high school summer ball team, even though his original inclination was to decline.
“It allowed me to see baseball from, I guess, a different light, a different point of view,” he said, “which started to make me fall in love with it again.”
That love proved strong enough for Ivey to double down on coaching. The Sherman Shadowcats are a Texas-based collegiate summer league team within the Mid America League. When they found themselves in need of a pitching coach, they offered the job to Ivey. The life insurance salesman accepted the chance to coach in his spare time.
But when attrition hit in late July, it left the team without enough pitchers to get through an upcoming game. The head coach asked Ivey if he would start it.
“I basically rolled out of bed. I’d played catch a few times, just screwing around. I hadn’t been training. Hadn’t been intently throwing, nothing,” Ivey said. “I just said, ‘Screw it, I’ll hop on the mound and we’ll see how it goes.’”
Ivey struck out all three hitters he saw. He threw without pain and, for once, could feel his fingers, fulfilling Baker’s prophecy. Radar guns had Ivey’s fastball in the low 90s, up from the 88-90 mph he averaged at the end of his professional career.
“It felt good to go back out there and compete and know that, ‘Hey, I can still throw strikes. My stuff is still good.’”
Ivey soon wondered how good. The reintroduction to competition, however brief it was, helped to crystallize a path that began to feel more realistic.
“I started throwing and thinking about it. And I just thought, ‘All right, I’m going to do this,’” Ivey said.
“We prayed on it a lot. My wife would pray for me and she would ask God to kind of help me find my direction. What’s my purpose? Everything just went back to baseball.”
Ivey knows he can pitch. That feel for the game hasn’t left him. Trying to do it without velocity or feel for any of his secondary pitches sunk his first professional stint, even as he ascended the Astros’ organizational hierarchy.
“If I come back and my stuff is better and I’m the same pitcher — which I do believe I can still pitch,” Ivey said. “And now stuff is better and I’m healthy, who knows what could happen?”
Ivey has not been on a radar gun since his substitute summer league start. He is studying both biomechanics and the art of pitching instead of relying on nothing but natural arm talent. Ivey’s initial findings leave him amazed at what he accomplished — and angry he didn’t discover it sooner.
“My throwing mechanics, in general, were just so bad. It’s a miracle that my arm didn’t blow off,” Ivey said.
Tyler Ivey has the most unorthodox delivery in camp. More on how he got it, why it works and why the Astros don’t want to tinker with it – https://t.co/L59T7l1ReL pic.twitter.com/jbG0ESpj5D
— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) March 11, 2021
“I just had no idea. I was just kind of relying on my arm, relying on my natural talent to get it done. That can only last for so long until it all blows up in your face.”
During his first professional stint, Ivey had an unconventional delivery, complete with a high leg kick and violent rotation. He’s modified it to be “much more efficient and smooth” after making “significant changes” to his body and posture.
“After throwing bullpens and throwing with 100 percent intensity, my elbow doesn’t even get sore, let alone hurt, which is pretty remarkable,” Ivey said.
Ivey hasn’t changed his five-pitch arsenal, but does believe all of his offerings have benefitted from his body’s overhaul. His curveball is sharper with more downward action. His changeup added some depth. His fastball remains hoppy with some backspin — traits Houston’s pitching infrastructure covets.
The Astros, the organization that once thought enough of Ivey to make him a major leaguer at 25, still retain his contractual rights. Whether they invite Ivey to minor-league spring training in March or release him remains an open question. But even if they offered him another chance, it’s possible that too much time has passed. Ivey isn’t sure of the outcome, but said he will nevertheless remain an Astros fan.
Ivey harbors some regret for how he handled the demotion after his major-league debut, but otherwise is content with the first chapter of his career.
How the next unfolds is Ivey’s foremost focus.
“We’re really happy living the nice, simple little life we’ve created,” Ivey said. “But we both feel that God’s put it on our hearts that I’m on a mission and I’m going to go do it, whatever that looks like. And if it doesn’t work out well, I’m completely fine with that. I’ll just go back home and be happy again with my family.
“But I do believe that there’s unfinished business out there. I’d like to go see what that looks like.”
(Photo: Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)
