Yosemite National Park is famous for its diverse offerings. From granite cliffs to waterfalls, clear streams, lakes, mountains, meadows, sequoia groves and glaciers, it’s a stunning presentation of all nature has to offer.
It is a hiker’s paradise. But there was something off about Tyler Gilbert’s experience there in the summer of 2021.
“I remember thinking, ‘This doesn’t feel right,'” Gilbert said. “That made me realize that I wasn’t done playing. It all felt out of place. It made me realize that I should be playing baseball.”
Gilbert and hundreds of other professional baseball players were doing things that summer that didn’t feel right because the COVID pandemic led Major League Baseball to shut down the minor leagues. Many found solace at alternate sites, which left the potential for other players to be called up to the big leagues in an abbreviated season.
The rest, including Gilbert, filled their summers with something other than baseball for the first time since they were in elementary school.
Gilbert’s travels in the summer of 2021 in Yosemite National Park mirrored his baseball path.
He went from San Lorenzo Valley High School in the lumber and mining town of Felton, California, to Santa Barbara City College to the fast lane of USC in southern California and then was a 2015 sixth-round pick of the Phillies.
After touching down in all five of the Phillies’ minor-league stops in five seasons, Gilbert was traded on Feb. 15, 2020, to the Dodgers. He was close to home again. He spent a couple weeks in spring training before MLB shut down its sites and teams sent players home.
A minor league Rule-5 Draft, a major league no-hitter and another trade later, and Gilbert is back at Coca-Cola Park as a Triple-A pitcher trying to make his way to the Phillies.
“There have been a lot of life changes since the last time I was here,” Gilbert said. “I was thinking about that [Thursday] when I was driving up here.”
The 30-year-old traveled light throughout most of his minor league career. He’s since been married and has a 10-month-old son.
Gilbert was a relief pitcher his final three seasons in his first stint in the Phillies’ system. He’ll start his second tour of duty in a similar capacity. The left-hander bounced back and forth in the first month of the 2024 season with Louisville, Cincinnati’s Triple-A affiliate, before he was sent back to Philadelphia for cash.
“I’m happy to be here, get a fresh start,” Gilbert said. “I’m familiar with this organization and ballpark. I’m happy to continue to do my thing.”
Gilbert’s regular-season numbers in Louisville were the opposite of how he threw in spring training before being sent down in the final week by the Reds. He had a 13.11 ERA and .436 batting average against in seven appearances.
The California native said he gave up a lot of weak contact and produced good exit velo but had nothing to show for it.
“The numbers I started with in Louisville don’t reflect how I was throwing,” he said. “I wasn’t getting lit up by any means. The big ERA is like a cloud over me. But I can’t let that define who am I.”
Gilbert felt like he was close to getting his first major-league call-up in 2019 with the Phillies. He sported a 2.83 ERA with two saves, a 1.11 WHIP and a .224 batting average against in 36 games. But the only call he got was the one letting him know he’d been traded during the next spring training.
Like Yosemite’s many stunningly beautiful twists and turns, Gilbert’s journey was just beginning.
After spending most of the 10 months as Dodgers property camping in one of the United States’ most famous national parks and working as an electrician with his father, Gilbert was picked by the Diamondbacks in the minor-league portion of the Rule-5 Draft on Dec. 10, 2020.
He made his major-league debut Aug. 3, 2021, in the eighth inning of Arizona’s home game against San Francisco.
Gilbert did not allow an earned run in two more relief appearances before making MLB history on Aug. 14, when he pitched a no-hitter in his first start, a 7-0 win over visiting San Diego. He walked three and threw 102 pitches, most since July 3, 2016.
Gilbert’s gem was the eighth MLB no-hitter that season, a record.
“It took me until the offseason to realize what happened,” he said. “I was still in shock. My goal was to get through five innings, give the team a chance to win a game.
“One thing turns into the next, innings are rolling and I’m not giving up any hits. I really blacked out. I don’t really remember the game. It was one of those crazy experiences.”
It also is something Gilbert does not want to be defined by, as the guy who threw a no-hitter in his first MLB start — the first to do so since Bobo Holloman with the St. Louis Browns in 1953 and fourth overall (the other two occurred in the late 1800s).
Gilbert yo-yo’d back and forth from 2021-23 between Arizona and Triple-A Reno, a four-hour drive from his hometown. He started some games. He relieved in others.
“It’s been a little bit of a windy road,” he said, “but it’s the life we choose. You never know what’s going to happen. You learn to adjust to everything.”
Gilbert got married in 2022. He also lowered his arm slot that season which led to an uptick in his velocity. His pitching repertoire is similar to what it was when he first left Lehigh Valley.
He became a father in 2023, his last in the Diamondbacks’ organization.
Gilbert moved to the Reds organization and had the best big league spring training of his career before being sent down to Triple-A. He signed a six-month lease on a house in the Louisville area, then he was packing things up again six weeks later after being traded again.
“We had to pack everything up in less than 24 hours,” Gilbert said, “We shipped one car, caravaned the truck and drove 10 hours out here, and here we go. My wife has been really supportive. It’s best having her around me for all these moving parts. She handles it well. She takes care of all of this so I can do this.”
Gilbert said he knows what he must do to get back to the majors and stay there.
“Consistency is the biggest thing for pitchers [in the majors],” he said. “They do it over and over and over up there. That’s a huge separator. Even if their arm doesn’t feel good, they can be the same guy for multiple outings.
“Things didn’t start off in Triple-A [this year] the way I wanted. Bouncing back and forth between roles. Starting and relieving, they are two completely different routines, mindsets, everything. Overthinking it can backfire. It’s tough to get in a rhythm when doing multiple roles, but complaining does nothing, right? Just pitch.”
As a couple trades, an epidemic in 2020 and an August night in the Arizona desert in 2021 proved, you never know what’s next.
Morning Call reporter Tom Housenick can be reached at 610-820-6651 or at thousenick@mcall.com
