Ultimate hug watch: Angels infielder gets called up to the Majors mid-game

Every Minor Leaguer dreams of getting the call to The Show. Not many of them find out the news from a teammate while they're in the middle of a game.

With two outs in the bottom of the second inning of Triple-A Salt Lake’s contest against Tacoma at Cheney Stadium, Angels infielder Chad Stevens had to be surprised when Yolmer Sánchez took the 26-year-old's place at the hot corner.

Sánchez trotted to third base and told Stevens he was heading to the big leagues, effective immediately.

What followed was a sequence of hugs: Sánchez, Bees manager Keith Johnson, coach Jack Santora and about a dozen other Salt Lake players and coaches celebrating Stevens' first MLB callup.

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With 424 Minor League games under his belt, the Portland product has been amid the best season of his five-year career. Stevens' 14 big flies and .925 OPS rank second among Angels Minor Leaguers. The OPS has been Stevens’ mark as a pro by 159 points.

After being selected by the Astros in the 11th round of the 2021 Draft and playing over three seasons in Houston’s system, Stevens was released from Double-A Corpus Christi on May 7, 2024. Twenty days later, Los Angeles gave him a chance, and he took advantage of it. Stevens posted an .853 OPS at Double-A Rocket City, earning a promotion to Salt Lake for the final 17 games of 2024.

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Now, just over a year after finding a second home, the 6-foot-3 right-handed slugger has parlayed that opportunity into the change to make his debut in the bigs.