Adam Loewen’s baseball career comes full circle with return to big-league mound

One of the great baseball stories of 2015 is about to play out, of all places, in Philadelphia sometime soon. It’s been more than seven years since Adam Loewen toed the rubber for a major-league team, but when he next takes the mound for the Phillies it will cap an amazing, and odd, journey back to the big leagues.

Tomorrow Chase Utley will be reinstated from the 15-day DL and LHP Adam Loewen will have his contract selected from @IronPigs.

— Phillies (@Phillies) August 6, 2015

What makes Loewen’s path from the minors to the big leagues and back again remarkable is that he is a pitcher-turned-outfielder-turned-pitcher. Loewen is a former first-round pick of the Orioles, an imposing 6-foot-6 left-hander who at fourth overall in 2002 was also the highest drafted Canadian player ever. He pitched parts of three seasons with the Orioles from 2006 to 2008 making 29 starts before chronic elbow injuries forced him to give up pitching.

But he was nowhere near finished with baseball. He signed with the Blue Jays in 2008 and began a new career as a position player, starting all over again in Single-A. He has said the decision was “crazy” and he doesn’t know “where I came up with the balls to do that.”

But it worked out. He worked his way up through the Blue Jays’ system and was a September callup in 2011. He appeared in 14 games and hit .188 with one home run and four RBIs. He spent the next two years with the Mets and Blue Jays, mostly in Triple-A before signing with the Phillies in 2014.

When the Phillies came calling Loewen was without a hitting job but was willing to try pitching again, and the Phillies gave him a chance to do it. Now a reliever, he had a 2.15 ERA and 10 saves with 60 strikeouts in 46 innings with the Lehigh Valley IronPigs at the time of his callup. Whenever it is he makes an appearance for the Phillies it will be the first time he’s been in the majors as a pitcher since July 6, 2008.

Loewen told the National Post in July that, much like hitting, returning to pitching wasn’t easy, but his dream of returning to the big leagues kept him going.

“At the beginning there was a lot of hesitation, just because of the surgery I had and having stress fractures in back-to-back years in ’07 and ’08,” he said. “I just didn’t know how my arm was going to respond. But I didn’t have a job as a hitter, and it was my third and last chance. I’ve been very fortunate that my arm has healed the way it has.”

“Just putting my foot on the rubber in the bullpen felt different than it did when I left. But after about three months, I started to feel like a pitcher again.”

Now he gets to feel like a major leaguer again. From pitcher to hitter and back again. How can you not be romantic about baseball?

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