Red Sox Call up Former Newport Gull Pat Light
April 24, 2016 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)
Newport Gulls News Release
NEWPORT, R.I. - Pawtucket Red Sox pitcher Pat Light became the 10th former Gull to get the call to Major League Baseball on Sunday, and the first ever promoted to the 25-man roster of the Boston Red Sox.
His promotion comes a day after his former Gull teammate, Mark Appel, led the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs to victory at McCoy Stadium versus the PawSox.
Light, a starting pitcher with the 2010 Newport Gulls, has steadily risen through the Red Sox farm system, running into several Gulls alumni along the way. Among his teammates in Pawtucket is Chris Dominguez, who played for Newport in 2006 and made his big-league debut with the San Francisco Giants in 2014.
In five appearances with Pawtucket this season, opponents are hitting just .190 against Light, who has gained a reputation as a right-handed flamethrower with a high-90s fastball. With the PawSox, he's already racked up 10 strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings of work, all of them in relief - a role he's expected to fill when he makes his debut appearance with Boston.
Meanwhile, Appel has found his groove with Lehigh Valley early in 2016, owning a 1.62 ERA and 14 strikeouts in 16 2/3 innings. The No. 1 overall draft pick in 2013 (the highest of any NECBL alumnus), Appel worked his way up through the minors in the Houston Astros organization before his acquisition by the Philadelphia Phillies, and likely isn't far from making his own Major League debut. On Saturday afternoon at McCoy, the righty earned his third victory in as many starts, allowing two runs in five innings while striking out three PawSox.
PawSox third baseman Dominguez, currently on the seven-day disabled list, is hitting .290 through his first nine games of the season. He began his professional career in 2009 with the San Francisco organization, and played in the Cincinnati Reds organization in 2015, including getting his second call-up to a big-league club.
Together, Appel and Light anchored the 2010 Gulls pitching staff, combining to earn 11 of the team's 27 regular-season wins, and both were selected to pitch in the NECBL All-Star Game, held that summer at Cardines Field in Newport. Stanford's Appel was sensational for Newport, owning a 6-1 record with a 1.87 ERA through eight appearances, seven of them starts. Light, a 1st Round pick by the Red Sox in 2012 out of Monmouth University, appeared in 10 games, making six starts, with a 2.36 ERA and 5-0 record for the Gulls. Appel would return to pitch at Cardines against the Gulls in 2011, as a member of Team USA.
Dominguez, out of the University of Louisville, provided offensive power for the 2006 Gulls, a team which continues to hold the record for most wins in NECBL history, achieving a 32-10 mark before going on to fall in the Southern Division Championship Series. Appearing in 42 games, his 11 home runs set a team record that wouldn't be broken until Washington State's Yale Rosen crushed 12 long balls during the unprecedented offense of the 2012 NECBL season.
Light joins eight former Newport Gulls and one Rhode Island Gull who have appeared on Major League rosters. The first, Jason Szuminski, played for the Rhode Island Gulls in 1999, during the franchise's two-year stint in Cranston before the team's move to Newport in 2001. The remainder - Chris Iannetta, Mitchell Boggs, Adam Wilk, Danny Otero, Jeff Beliveau, Greg Garcia, Chris Taylor, and Dominguez - each played summer baseball at Cardines Field before realizing their big-league dreams.
The Newport Gulls, members of the 13-team New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL), are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, founded as the Rhode Island Gulls in 1998 in Cranston, R.I., before moving to Newport in 2001. In addition to recruiting, fielding, and developing a team of the nation's top collegiate baseball athletes and attracting 50,000 fans annually to Cardines Field, the predominantly volunteer organization strives to benefit the youth of Newport County via summer camps, reading programs, fundraisers, scholarships, and charitable donations - totaling over $1 million since 2001. The Gulls are six-time champions of the NECBL - the winningest franchise in league history - and were ranked as the overall No. 1 summer collegiate baseball team in the country by Perfect Game USA in 2012.
New England Collegiate Baseball League Stories from April 24, 2016
- Red Sox Call up Former Newport Gull Pat Light - Newport Gulls
- Vermont Alum Ege Makes MLB Debut with Marlins - NECBL
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