Tyler Zuber is crediting a stint with a minor league team on Long Island for helping him “find his love for baseball again.”
The Rays pitcher made his first major league appearance since 2021 in the sixth inning of Monday’s 9-1 loss to the Yankees in The Bronx.
Zuber had missed all of the 2022 baseball season and most of the 2023 campaign due to shoulder impingement syndrome and started this season with the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League.
That’s where the 29-year-old righty felt that he had found his love for the game again, according to a report by Ryan Bass during the Bally Sports broadcast.
“It’s pretty poetic how baseball works with Tyler Zuber returning here to the big leagues just a few miles from where he revived his career playing independent ball for Long Island,” Bass reported on the air. “Saying, that’s where he found his love for baseball again. Not really knowing if he’d ever get a chance to get back here to the big leagues.
“He said that he cried the night he found out he was going to get the call back up here to the majors, a moment he wasn’t sure would ever come again.”
Zuber pitched in six games for the Ducks this season and posted a 1.58 ERA in the process.
In 5 ⅔ innings for the Atlantic League ballclub, he allowed just five hits and struck out 10 batters while being credited for two saves.
The Rays purchased Zuber’s contract in May and he reported to the club’s Triple-A affiliate in Durham where he remained until he was added to the major league roster following the All-Star break.
“We are excited to see Tyler return to the Major Leagues,” Ducks Manager Lew Ford said in a press release on Monday. “He did an exceptional job for us earlier this year and is very deserving of this opportunity.”
In his first big league appearance since Sept. 30, 2021, Zuber threw 1 ⅓ innings allowing one run on two hits and striking out two.