Vauxhall Jets pitcher continues unique baseball journey with Blue Jays | 24CA News

Every February, baseball roads converge at spring coaching, the place main league groups put together for the common season.

Pitcher Adam Macko’s journey has taken him farther off the crushed path than most to get to Dunedin, Florida — the spring coaching house of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Born in Slovakia, Macko was launched to baseball at a tryout in Grade 1.

“They got a bunch of tees set up and we were hitting these little foam balls into a net,” Macko stated.

“I signed up not really knowing what baseball was. I didn’t understand the rules at all.”

“Neither did my parents. They didn’t even know a sport like that existed, but I got into it… and that’s where it kind of took off.”

Macko continued to study the sport in Europe, earlier than his household finally settled in Alberta.

“It didn’t really get super serious for me personally until we got to Ireland,” Macko stated. “My first role model was Justin Verlander, so I saw him pitch and wanted to emulate his mechanics and that’s where I got to improving myself.”

In Grade 10, the lefthander joined the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball in southern Alberta, spending three years with the Jets.

Head coach Les McTavish recollects a pushed, hard-working participant on and off the diamond.

“If he didn’t have a good exam or didn’t have a good day on the baseball field, whatever it was, it always motivated him,” McTavish stated.

“He’s always been talented, but he wasn’t gifted. Adam wasn’t 6’5 and threw 90 miles an hour when he was 15. He’s 6’0. He’s had to work for everything he’s gotten.

“Early on in his career probably worked himself too much. He was a really, really hard worker, but he sometimes worked himself into soreness.”

It was proof of a need to achieve excessive objectives.

“He was really hungry to thrive for excellence,” McTavish stated. “He was in the fall of his 10th-Grade year when he said he wanted to be a hall of famer and we all kind of laughed at him.”

“Not saying he’s going to be a hall of famer, but he’s trending in the right direction.”

A seventh-round choose by the Seattle Mariners in 2019, Macko was dealt to Toronto this winter as a part of the commerce that despatched Jays slugger Teoscar Hernandez to Seattle.

“It was either the Mariners or the Blue Jays I wanted to get drafted by, so it’s kind of cool to get to experience both organizations,” Macko stated.

The commerce follows a season the place Macko struck out 60 batters in 38.1 innings with the Everett AquaSox, the Mariners’ high-A minor league affiliate.

Now attending spring coaching and making ready for the upcoming season, the southpaw is targeted on bettering his command.

“Fill up the zone a little bit, get the walk rate down and I think I’m on a good trajectory to do that,” Macko stated.

A trajectory he hopes will result in the massive leagues.

“His actual abilities on the field are top-tier now. They’re not filler, minor leaguer-type. His stuff is exceptional,” McTavish stated.

“If he can learn to throw a few more strikes, I’d be real surprised if he’s not in the big leagues the next couple years.”

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