SAN DIEGO — MacKenzie Gore's path from top prospect to the mound on Friday for his MLB debut has been anything but typical.
Figuratively and literally.
He'd already made one superb start in Round Rock for Triple-A El Paso, flown back to Peoria, Ariz., to fetch his car and was two hours out from Southwest University Park when his phone rang.
A.J. Preller was on the line with a question.
"Do you want to throw your bullpen in El Paso or San Francisco?"
Yep.
Gore had gotten the call.
Finally.
"It's definitely a little sweeter," the 23-year-old left-hander said in front of his locker at Petco Park, wedged between Wil Myers and Luke Voit. "We thought if we could get through it that this day would be really cool, just with the situation. It was a ton of work. A lot of people helped me. Everybody that's helped me, I'm really happy for them, too."
The situation was this.
The No. 3 overall pick in 2017 and the top consensus pitching prospect in the game entering 2020, Gore's mechanics went awry sometime between his first big league spring training and COVID-19 camp later that summer. He spent the whole year under the hood with player development and various coaches at the University of San Diego that summer, was hit hard the following spring at El Paso and removed from competition for two months last summer to fully address the deficiencies in extended spring training.
The pitcher who emerged on the other side of all that was hitting 99 mph this spring and struck out 16 batters against three walks in Cactus League action, vying for a big league job until the end of camp.
The bump in velocity helped quite a bit.
So did re-harnessing some of the aggressiveness that had escaped his delivery.
"I got back into a rhythm on the mound, being athletic and using the lower half the right way," Gore said. "That was probably the main thing. There were definitely a few things I had to work on, but just using the lower body the correct way and moving well."
Gore didn't make the opening-day rotation, but struck out seven over five shutout innings of two-hit ball for the Chihuahuas on Saturday before getting the long-awaited call from Preller as he drove from Arizona to El Paso.
"It was a cool moment," Gore recalled. "He was excited. I was excited."
Friday will be quite a bit cooler as Gore, taking Blake Snell's roster spot as the veteran lefty hits the injured list with adductor tightness, finally takes the mound at Petco Park, on Jackie Robinson Day in an unnamed No. 42 jersey instead of his No. 1 jersey.
His family will be in town, as will his old high school coach from Whiteville, N.C., and his wife.
"It's going to be a real special start for him," Padres manager Bob Melvin said.
