Houston Astros rookie pitcher AJ Blubaugh is striving for success as a major leaguer but wants to be known for more than that.
“More than just staying in the majors, my ultimate goal is to spread as much of the Good News of the Gospel as I can, whether it’s to one or 1,000 people at a time, by whatever means,” he said. “I want to make people think about God and His importance in their lives. If I can do that wherever I am, that’s a win.”
Blubaugh is part of a Catholic family with many members in Knox and Richland counties, including Father Homer Blubaugh, a great uncle and a priest of the Diocese of Columbus who lives in retirement in his hometown of Danville.
AJ (Alan Joseph) has pitched four games with the Astros this season, posting a 2-1 record with a 3.60 earned run average, striking out 16 batters and walking three while giving up 11 runs and 11 hits in 14 innings.
He has spent most of the year with the Astros’ Class AAA team, the Sugar Land (Texas) Space Cowboys of the Pacific Coast League, where his record was a somewhat deceptive 5-8 with a 5.27 ERA. He was the PCL’s pitcher of the week for the week of Aug. 4-10 and was among the league’s top pitchers in batting average against (.252) and strikeouts (97) when he was called up to Houston for the fourth time this season on Aug. 26.
He began the season in Sugar Land and made his first big-league appearance on April 30, starting against the Detroit Tigers at home and giving up seven runs (two earned) and five hits in four innings, striking out six and walking one.
He then was sent back to Sugar Land until early August, returned to Houston to pitch five innings of long relief and get the win at Miami in a 7-3 victory on Aug. 5, went back to Sugar Land the next day, was recalled again on Aug. 23 and was the winner in a four-inning relief stint at Baltimore that night in a 9-8 victory. He was sent back down after that game but was recalled once more the following day because of an injury to pitcher John Rooney, who himself had just been called up from the Space Cowboys.
His only appearance since then was in a ninth-inning mop-up role in a 3-0 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 31. With major-league rosters expanded to 28 after Sept. 1, he has a good chance of staying in Houston for at least the rest of the regular season as the Astros try to win their fifth straight American League West Division championship and make the playoffs for the ninth consecutive time.
Blubaugh said it wasn’t surprising that he started the season at Sugar Land and that he had hoped to be brought up to Houston at some point, but he was surprised at that call coming within a month of the start of the season.
“I’d had a couple of good outings in April and had just gotten back on a Sunday night from a road trip to Tacoma, sat down in my apartment after making dinner and was taking my first bite when I got a phone call from Mickey (Storey, Sugar Land’s manager) asking how I felt about throwing tomorrow,” he said earlier this month. “I thought he meant I’d be starting on Tuesday, but he said it was because the Astros wanted me in Houston on Wednesday to start against the Tigers.
“I’m not sure what I said to him, but it seems my mind went blank after that and it took a good five minutes for the news to sink in after I hung up.
“I thought of all the times I was told I should give up, that I was too small, that no one from Bellville, Ohio would ever make it to the big leagues, yet here I was,” said Blubaugh, who turned 25 on July 4 and is a 6-foot-2, 200-pound right-hander who was a baseball, football and basketball star at Clear Fork High School in Bellville, near Mansfield.
He played in college at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was selected by the Astros in the seventh round of the 2022 draft and has worked his way steadily up the minor-league ladder since then.
“Once I got over the shock, I called my girlfriend in Milwaukee and told her I needed her to come to Houston right away to watch me pitch, and she broke down,” he said.
“Then I called my parents and woke them up because it was around 11 p.m. I could hardly talk to them without crying. It still breaks me up to think about how much my mom sacrificed and how my dad would play catch and practice with me whenever I wanted, all to get me to this point,” he said with obvious emotion in his voice.
“A bunch of my family members, probably more than 20, made it to my first game. The last few moments before the first pitch were like a montage of my baseball career, from 2 and 3 years old through T-ball, high school, college and the pros, all flashing through my head. Then I pitched my first strike and got into a groove.
“That first outing didn’t go well, but it didn’t concern me because I’ve always left everything up to God,” Blubaugh said. “There was a period of about two months or so afterward when I think I tried to put matters too much into my own hands rather than trusting Him in all things. I had to remind myself to bear down and start from scratch and that here I am playing a kid’s game at a high enough level that I’m being paid to do it.”
His return to the big leagues was much more successful as he threw 70 pitches in five innings against the Marlins, striking out five and not walking a batter until his final inning of a bullpen game – one in which a team’s intention is to use several pitchers for short periods. He settled on a simple array of pitches, relying on his four-seamer, changeup and sweeper, with a velocity reaching a high of 98 mph while ignoring the curveball, cutter and slider he also threw against Detroit.
Astros manager Joe Espada had hoped for “some good innings” from him and Blubaugh filled that purpose, being presented after the game with the wrestling-style “Pitcher of the Game” belt the team awards after victories.
“He went to 98 frequently today,” Espada said. “There was some conviction behind his pitches. There was a purpose. … When you’ve got 98 in the tank and then you can throw a changeup and a sweeper, it makes the at-bat a little more complicated for the hitters. (His performance) was very encouraging to see. We needed that from him.”
After returning to Sugar Land, Blubaugh followed that performance five days later with six shutout innings against the Sacramento River Cats, which earned him his second PCL pitcher of the week award in two years.
His third callup resulted in a performance in Baltimore similar to the one in Miami and was notable to him for another reason besides being his second big-league victory. “My grandmother was at that game and it was the first time she’s seen me pitch since college,” he said. “She’s always been one of my greatest supporters.”
Baseball keeps Blubaugh away from his family for much of the year, but when the baseball season ends, he heads for Bellville, where he is a member of Resurrection Parish in Lexington, part of the Diocese of Toledo, to spend as much time as he can with his family, including Father Blubaugh.
“Father has blessed me throughout my life,” he said. “He’s part of our Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings and it’s been great to have him visit the various places where I’ve pitched since signing with the Astros.”
“AJ’s always been very serious and humble,” Father Blubaugh said. “He doesn’t push himself on people but is very laid back. He was a good student in high school and was very much fun to watch as an athlete.
“He started out as a catcher, but in his senior year his coach told him ‘You’re a pitcher’ and that turned out to be a pretty good call. His dad was in sports, his mom was a great volleyball player and his sister was on a championship soccer team at Clear Fork, so it’s no surprise he’s so accomplished athletically.”
AJ said that like many young people, his faith became less important to him in college. Friendships with fellow players in the Astros’ system after he began his professional career made him realize he was missing a significant part of his life.
“I became buddies with Tyler Guilfoyl and Ryan Wrobleski, who were in the same Astros draft class with me, and Shay Whitcomb, who’s a couple years older. We’re all in the same Bible study and it’s helped all of us grow in our journey with God,” he said.
“Last year on all my start days, I began wearing a T-shirt saying ‘Jesus won’ during warmups. It was cool how many people in the stands responded to that and that when kids asked, I was able to tell them what God has meant to me. I’ve adopted Luke 1:37 – ‘For nothing will be impossible with God,’ which the angel Gabriel said to Mary at the Annunciation – as my special Bible verse.
“I’ve faced so many batters so far in the majors that it’s hard to tell who’s been the hardest to pitch against. I can recall pitching against Mike Trout of the Angels the other day and thinking, ‘Here’s someone I admired while growing up because he plays so hard and with passion, and now he’s in the batter’s box facing me.’” Trout grounded out to shortstop in that appearance.
“Being up and down between Sugar Land and Houston these last few weeks and performing in all kinds of pitching roles this year has really helped strengthen my attitude of just talking things day by day and trusting God. I’m honored to do whatever I can for Him and whatever I can to help the team toward its ultimate goal of winning another World Series.”