Baseball – Joe Jacques Gets the Call to the Majors, Will Join Red Sox at Yankee Stadium Friday.
The road to the Major Leagues has been a long one for Red Bank Regional graduate Joe Jacques, but the first Big League clubhouse he will enter as a member of an active Major League Baseball roster will be the one closest to where he grew up.
The Boston Red Sox are reportedly calling up Jacques to join their bullpen Friday night at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, where the Red Sox will open a three-game series with the Yankees, according to a post on Twitter by Joel Sherman of the New York Post.
Jacques is a 2013 graduate of Red Bank Regional and played his college baseball at Manhattan College. He was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 2018 First-Year Player Draft and this past December, the Red Sox made him a Rule 5 selection out of the Pirates Minor League system.
After graduating from Red Bank and heading to Manhattan, Jacques turned himself into a side-arm-delivering pitcher -- a feature that made him even more unique give he is already left-handed. He went on to record more than 200 strikeouts in his Manhattan career and was a 33rd round selection of the Pirates in 2018.
The 2019 Draft was the last year the Draft went past the 20th round, but signed with Pittsburgh and began his climb toward the Major Leagues. He stayed in the Pirates system for four seasons -- with the canceled 2020 Minor League season knocking out a potential fifth season.
Despite not playing in 2020, Jacques started 2021 in Triple-A and spent most of 2022 at the same level. Since he did not reach the Majors and was in the Pirates system for five year, he was eligible to be selected in the Rule 5 Draft and was selected by the Red Sox. Despite not selecting him for the Major League roster on opening day, the Pirates declined to take Jacques back and he remained a Red Sox farmhand.
On Friday, at the age of 28, Jacques will done the Red Sox road uniforms in Yankee Stadium -- the home of the team he grew of cheering to beat his current team.
Jacques boasted a 3.58 ERA in 27 2/3 innings at Triple-A Worcester with 27 hits, nine walks allowed and 24 strikeouts. He joins a Red Sox bullpen that is 19th in Baseball with a 4.19 relief ERA and 12th in FanGraphs' Wins-Above-Replacement metric through Thursday's games.
In his senior season at Red Bank, Jacques was an all-division performer for the Bucs, posting a 6-2 record with a 1.50 ERA and 47 strikeouts over 51 innings.
Friends and family will be on hand Friday night and throughout the weekend in hopes of catching Jacques's Major League debut. That group will include Red Bank coach Nick Tucker and former coach Del Dal Pra, who will be in attendance Saturday night, Tucker confirmed.
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