{"id":149849,"date":"2026-03-27T08:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/149849\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T08:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:16:13","slug":"eries-kyle-leahy-silver-creeks-cole-winn-set-to-shine-as-mlb-season-begins-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/149849\/","title":{"rendered":"Erie’s Kyle Leahy, Silver Creek’s Cole Winn set to shine as MLB season begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Leahy was the standout pitcher at Erie High School who could also hoop. Cole Winn was the phenom at Silver Creek before he was a first-round draft pick.<\/p>\n

Now, Leahy and Winn are being asked to give a couple of big-league teams a shot in the arm.<\/p>\n

\"TexasTexas Rangers pitcher Cole Winn throws to the Miami Marlins during the 11th inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo\/Julio Cortez)<\/p>\n

With Major League Baseball\u2019s Opening Day upon us, the two locals find themselves on the 26-man roster for their respective clubs. Leahy starts the season in the St. Louis Cardinals\u2019 rotation, while Winn is back healthy as a key piece in the Texas Rangers\u2019 bullpen.<\/p>\n

Leahy is slated to make his season debut against the New York Mets on Monday at Busch Stadium. Though the 2015 Erie graduate has spent most of his big-league career as a reliever, the Cardinals are mixing things up in the wake of a three-year postseason drought.<\/p>\n

Since his call-up by St. Louis in 2023, Leahy made 97 appearances out of the bullpen before starting the final game of the 2025 season, tossing three scoreless innings against the Chicago Cubs. He finished last year 4-2 with a 3.07 ERA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a crazy ride to get here,\u201d Leahy said by phone this week. \u201cI\u2019m very excited for the opportunity to start. This has always been a goal of mine. I appreciate the moment, but there\u2019s still more I want to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leahy was the Longmont Times-Call baseball player of the year in 2015 after going 9-1 with a 0.41 ERA, leading the Tigers to the 4A state tournament.<\/a> In all, he was a four-sport athlete at Erie. He was an all-state basketball player who was coached by his father, Tim Leahy. He competed in track and field \u2014 placing second in the 4A high jump as a senior \u2014 and ran cross country.<\/p>\n

After high school, Leahy helped Colorado Mesa University reach the Division II World Series before being selected by the Cardinals with the 513th pick in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody is excited,\u201d said former Erie coach Harold Simmons, who coached Leahy and is now an assistant softball coach at Northern Colorado. \u201cTo see a young man from your area on that stage creates a lot of excitement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simmons said he has traveled to Coors Field over the past few seasons to see his former player. Leahy\u2019s best return home came last July, when he dazzled in a long-relief outing at the ballpark where, as a kid, he attended games with his grandparents. The silver lining in an 8-4 Cardinals loss, he allowed just one run and struck out seven over 3 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of this is just a tribute to what a tremendous worker he is,\u201d Simmons added, \u201cand the amount of time and effort he has put in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Texas, Winn is back to full strength for the Rangers after a shoulder injury ended what had been a stellar 2025 season for the Longmont native. Before landing on the injured list with a right rotator cuff strain, he posted a 1.51 ERA in 33 appearances out of the bullpen.<\/p>\n

Winn played his first three high school seasons at Silver Creek<\/a> before transferring to Orange Lutheran High School in Orange County, California. As a junior with the Raptors in 2017, he went 9-1 with a 1.22 ERA over 51 2\/3 innings. He was named Gatorade baseball player of the year in Colorado, then California, over his final two seasons.<\/p>\n

In 2018, Winn was selected with the 15th pick in the MLB Draft by the Rangers. He made 100 appearances in the minors before making his big-league debut in 2024.<\/p>\n

View a list of Prep sports and high school teams we cover.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyle Leahy was the standout pitcher at Erie High School who could also hoop. Cole Winn was the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[27507,68238,136,138,137,40145,1423,33462],"class_list":["post-149849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-cardinals","tag-cole-leahy","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-mets","tag-mlb","tag-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}