Tyler Callihan’s long, unusual baseball journey added another stop Tuesday night when the Pittsburgh Pirates asked him to take the ninth inning in a 12-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He gave up one hit and one walk but kept the inning scoreless in his first major league mound appearance.
The call came after the Dodgers had already piled up 10 runs in the seventh, leaving manager Don Kelly to turn to a player whose value to the club had always been tied to being able to do a little bit of everything. Callihan said during batting practice that one of his goals is to have a long major league career and play every position on the field at some point, and Tuesday offered the rare chance to put that versatility on display in the most unexpected way.
That versatility is not just talk. Over seven minor league seasons, Callihan has played first base, second base, third base and both corner outfield spots, and he also sees himself as an emergency catcher because he handled the position in high school. Drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in the third round out of Providence School of Jacksonville in 2019, the 5-foot-11, 205-pound Callihan joined Pittsburgh on March 4 in a trade for reliever Kyle Nicolas and was recalled from Triple-A Indianapolis on May 28.
The Pirates were not handing him the ball for the novelty of it. Their bullpen had already absorbed 96 pitches from Wilber Dotel, Brandan Bidois and Dennis Santana over the seventh and eighth innings, and Callihan was the last arm available to get them through the night. He threw all 15 of his pitches as fastballs, got Andy Pages to ground out to third on the second pitch, walked Miguel Rojas on five pitches and fell behind 3-0 to Mookie Betts before coming back with two called strikes and a fly out to center field.
That inning also carried a bit of history for Callihan, who never forgets where his baseball path was nearly derailed. Thirteen months earlier, he crashed glove-first into the padded wall in the left-field corner at Truist Park while trying to catch a Matt Olson foul ball against the Atlanta Braves, breaking both bones in his left forearm and eventually requiring three surgeries, including one to repair cartilage and ligament damage in his wrist. His fourth game for the Pirates came back at that same ballpark, and this time he left with a scoreless inning instead of another injury.
Callihan was realistic about the moment. He said it was fun, even if he would have preferred to be on the other side of the score, and the night underscored the kind of player Pittsburgh believes it has: one who can be asked to do almost anything, even in a one-sided loss. The bigger question now is whether the Pirates will ever need him on the mound again, or whether Tuesday remains the one-inning detour in a career built to keep moving everywhere else.
