The Pecan Park Eagle

Jason Lane, Age 37
9th Oldest 1st Time Starter
In MLB History

37-year old lefty Jason Lane today established himself as the ninth oldest man in baseball history to start his first MLB game as a pitcher. He did it  for the San Diego Padres and the path wasn’t easy. The road club Padres were playing against the always-tough-at-home Atlanta Braves  Not surprisingly, The Braves hung a 2-0 loss on Lane, but there could still be no crying in baseball this Monday, regardless of the defeat. Lane had already triumphed by simply showing up for the biggest rare moment in his incredible comeback as a big league pitcher.

Working six innings against the Braves, Lane’s fast ball was humming the plate at 90 mph and his slider was working effectively. He had walked none while striking out 2 and surrendering only six hits, but the safety that hurt him was the solo HR hit by Braves catcher Evan Gattis in the bottom of the 7th with none out that gave the Braves a 1-0 lead. The HR drove a tiring Lane from the game, inflating his season MLB ERA to 0.87 in three games. He had pitched twice previously in relief for the Padres in June before returning to the minors for further work.

Now the man who once hit 26 home runs for the 2005 for the NL pennant-winning Astros before his hitting fell apart over the two following seasons is back in the big leagues as a pitcher. He has a number of people to thank for helping him find the way back, but none more so than Skeeters club adviser Tal Smith and manager Gary Gaetti and the Sugar Land Skeeters. Our local Atlantic Independent League club and their deep-to-the-knees-true-blue talented baseball people gave Jason Lane the chance he needed  to begin his work back to the majors as a pitcher for the Skeeters in parts of both the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

Jason Lane was 9-3, 3.17 with Sugar Land in 2012 and 8-4, 2.98 with the Skeeters in 2013. That success led to some bigger progress steps both thoe seasons through 2014 in AAA PCL action before the Padres decided to give the man the chance that culminated in his memorable start today.

Good Luck to Jason Lane as a late-in-baseball-terms pitcher. He did it once before as a pretty good collegiate pitcher at USC back in the day and now he has a chance to use that second set of baseball talents for as long as he can keep on doing what he did today – and for a team that can get him some runs.

Lane already holds a couple of lesser known records in baseball history as a position player. When the Houston Astros defeated the St Louis Cardinals on the road to take the 2005 National League pennant behind the pitching of Roy Oswalt, it was Astros right fielder Jason Lane that caught the lazy fly ball to right field that ended that clincher game. And it also was the last putout ever made at Busch Stadium II before they tore the place down to make  room for Busch Stadium III in 2006.

Methuselah starting pitcher Jason Lane is the same man that holds those two putout records –  and those marks, like Jason Lane’s participation in them, is in the books forever.