CHICAGO –<\/p>\n
\u201cEmotional roller coaster.\u201d
\u201cIt is an emotional roller coaster.\u201d<\/p>\n
You might forgive David Sandlin\u2019s parents if they\u2019re confused on what day it is, or what city they are in. It\u2019s been quite a whirlwind journey this past month since David made his Major League debut for the Chicago White Sox.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen\u2019s the next game? We\u2019re looking at the schedule, trying to work it out. Ok, will this work out for us, and what are we going to do here,\u201d says Bill Sandlin, David\u2019s father.<\/p>\n
The wild ride for the Sandlins began on May 24th, when the White Sox called up 25-year-old from Triple-A Charlotte. And for Jan and Bill Sandlin, that meant receiving a phone call they\u2019d never forget from their son.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says you need to call in work on Wednesday and tell them you\u2019re not coming in to work. And I said, well I\u2019m on vacation. He says, well that\u2019s even better cause I just got called up. I said oh man you\u2019re kidding me. From there it went everywhere,\u201d says Bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was chaos,\u201d adds Jan.<\/p>\n
His emotional parents jumped in the car and made the 10-hour drive to the Windy City.<\/p>\n
\u201cTears.\u201d
\u201cHe worked so hard for it for so long. It\u2019s a dream and it\u2019s finally happening.\u201d
\u201cHe fought this whole thing the whole time. He never gave up on himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a having a day to get acclimated to the big leagues, the former Owasso standout took the mound on May 27th in his debut against the Minnesota Twins.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo get there to Rate Field and seeing your son pitch was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
After giving up the home run on his second career pitch, Sandlin settled in to make White Sox history. He retired the next 18 batters in a row, the most consecutive hitters retired by a White Sox pitcher in their MLB debut over the last 100 years. He only threw 61 pitches, 41 for strikes, to get through six innings. That\u2019s the fewest pitches per inning of any pitcher to throw at least six innings in their debut since 1988.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d seen it before. He can get locked in. You can almost see it in his face,\u201d says Jan.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis tools were working for him. The sliders were working, the fastball was working, everything was working for him. This was the same way. These guys hit him hard, and he\u2019s got these pros out there with him, they were making the plays,\u201d says Bill.<\/p>\n
Sandlin finished his first big league start by giving up just one hit and one run, while striking out four and walking none in the White Sox 15-2 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was the biggest thing, was knowing that he got him a win. First time out.\u201d
\u201cIt was humbling too.\u201d
\u201cYeah he was tough. It\u2019s emotional. The kid worked really hard, and to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandlin made two more appearances for Chicago before getting optioned back to Triple-A earlier this month. But from just one year of vasity baseball at Owasso, to getting a shot at Eastern Oklahoma State College, to helping lead the Sooners to a College World Series runner-up finish. His story of determination inspires the next generation of pitchers across Green Country.<\/p>\n
\u201cA kid that almost gave up, and now he\u2019s debuted in the majors and hopefully he can live his lifelong dream of playing in the majors. Cause that\u2019s one thing he said, I just don\u2019t want to get there, I want to play there,\u201d says Bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO – \u201cEmotional roller coaster.\u201d\u201cIt is an emotional roller coaster.\u201d You might forgive David Sandlin\u2019s parents if they\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-722049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}