CHICAGO -- In an age of baseball when young prospects receive calls to The Show, Eric Wagaman paid his dues over seven Minor League seasons. If given the chance, he knew he could prove himself as a big leaguer.
“I always believed that, just waited it out, and got an opportunity last year, and then obviously some opportunity this year, and just trying to capitalize on that and stick around,” Wagaman said.
Wagaman lined a go-ahead two-run triple in the eighth inning of the Marlins’ 3-1 comeback victory over the White Sox on Saturday night at Rate Field. It snapped Miami’s six-game road skid.
With two outs and the left-handed-hitting Jesús Sánchez due up, rookie managers Will Venable and Clayton McCullough played a game of chess. Venable brought in southpaw Brandon Eisert, so McCullough countered with right-handed-hitting Nick Fortes, who hadn’t appeared in a game since Tuesday. He walked to keep the eighth alive.
Wagaman then jumped on an elevated first-pitch changeup, sending it past diving center fielder Michael A. Taylor for his first career triple.
“He controls the strike zone well, there's impact there, and a big hit for him tonight,” McCullough said. “You're going to have these periods of a little bit of ups and downs, especially as you're adjusting now as he's been playing every day. I think we really are a buyer of the at-bat quality overall, and then his ability to impact and use the entire field.
“He's shown that, and it'll just be, for him, continuing to adjust to how people are attacking him. He's got a really good brain and good heartbeat, so I think those are a lot of good qualities with Eric, not only the physical, but also from the neck up.”
The 27-year-old Wagaman waited for moments like these.
A September callup for the Angels in 2024, Wagaman wound up designated for assignment a month later. He signed a Major League contract with the Marlins in December, and made his first Opening Day roster in March.
This is easily Wagaman’s most consistent look at the big league level. From April 12-25, he put together a career-best 12-game hitting streak with regular playing time. During that stretch, he batted .356/.396/.622 with 11 runs, six doubles, two homers and five RBIs.
Then came the league’s adjustments as well as the ebbs and flows of a season. Wagaman entered the decisive matchup hitless in his last 11 at-bats, and 2-for-25. He missed more mistake pitches and caught himself swinging at pitchers' pitches in the zone rather than those he could do damage with.
Wagaman credits his experience a few years ago at the Double-A level, where he didn’t play very much and learned to come off the bench, for his patience. Wagaman understands what he must do on a daily basis to be prepared and ready to contribute -- even when he sits for an extended period.
“I think I've learned a lot,” Wagaman said. “The hit streak that I had, I was capitalizing on mistakes over the plate, maybe being patient and really waiting for that. And then, maybe the past couple weeks, just trying to force it maybe a little bit, in my opinion. But overall, I feel like I've learned a lot, and it's May 10, so we have a lot of season left, so just trying to take all the stuff that I've learned already through these first 100 and something at-bats and carry it over the rest of the season.”
His early-season contributions are what president of baseball operations Peter Bendix hoped to see when the organization brought him into the mix. The same could be said for Kyle Stowers, another player with Minor League success who hadn’t carried it over to the MLB level.
With Miami trailing 1-0 in the seventh, Stowers lofted a solo homer to right field for his team-high-tying seventh tater of the season. The reigning National League Player of the Week had been 1-for-15 with no extra-base hits, three walks and eight strikeouts since Monday.
“We were just connecting over the fact, I think we played against each other in 2021 when he was with the Yankees and I was with the Orioles,” Stowers said of getting to know Wagaman this year. “Just more like that, but nothing as far as, like, ‘How can we get over this quote-unquote hump?’ But I think all of us are kind of trying to push each other, and do it alongside each other, because we're all kind of learning through this at the same time.”