Ultimate Strike Zone

Tonight the Atlanta Braves play an elimination game against the Philadelphia Phillies, and the man taking the ball first quit baseball to work at a 7-Eleven. Ray Kerr went to Hug High School in Reno, a program that has won 27 games since 2008 and lost 245. He had been to exactly one major league game in his life, a Giants and Athletics game in Oakland when he was 13. He pitched two years at Mendocino College and went 3-7 with a 4.60 ERA. So he quit. Went home to Reno. Took a job at the IMAX theater and a job at the 7-Eleven. Here is how he describes it. "I cleaned up a lot of popcorn. I said, I'm done cleaning up popcorn." And the other one. He "stocked the shelves in the cold fridge, listening to my music, kind of forgetting about baseball." He thought that was the rest of his life. Then a junior college coach named Eric Perry called him. "Let's go back to school. Let's go to Lassen Community College. I still think you have baseball left in you." Here is the part that matters most. Somebody had to pay for that school, and Ray Kerr grew up in foster care. The woman who paid was his foster mother, Lisa McCarthy. In his words. "She's the one who gave me all these opportunities to go back to college, to pay for it if I actually wanted to." He had to earn a 3.5 GPA to get in. He earned it. Then he went 7-4 with a 3.45 ERA over 91 innings. That summer he pitched in Alaska against Division I hitters and put up a 1.11 ERA, and his fastball started doing something it had never done. "I thought I could only throw maximum 92." It kept climbing into the mid 90s. The Seattle Mariners signed him as an undrafted free agent in August 2017. Four years later they traded him to the San Diego Padres, and in April 2022 he walked onto the mound at Petco Park and struck out Justin Turner, Max Muncy and Chris Taylor in order. He called his foster mother first. Then in June 2024, with the Atlanta Braves, he tore his elbow and needed Tommy John surgery. Career over. Again. They re-signed him on a minor league contract. He did not throw a major league pitch again until August 17 of this year. Since that day he has a 1.47 ERA, and left handed hitters are batting .174 against him. Which is why he is getting the ball tonight with Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper due up in the first. Now the honest part. He is an opener, not a traditional starter. He may face six hitters and hand it off. The Atlanta Braves are doing this because of matchups, not sentiment. But a kid from a high school that loses 90 percent of its games, who stocked a cold fridge at a convenience store and figured that was it, is throwing the first pitch of a win or go home playoff game. He is done cleaning up popcorn.