SPRING VALLEY, Calif. (KGTV) — All young baseball players have dreams of taking the diamond in the World Series. The ones at Steele Canyon High School in Spring Valley now have a Dodger blueprint to follow.
“It's intense to watch him pitch. He brings, just, a fire that you want to see your own players have," said Dominic Dirksen, head varsity baseball coach at the school.
He's talking about Alex Vesia, a 2014 Steele Canyon graduate drafted by the Miami Marlins in 2020 and now pitching in the postseason for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“All the teachers who talked about him say how much energy he had in class," Dirksen said. "Kind of the same energy, except a little bit more he displays on the mound.”
Vesia's been clutch for these Dodgers. All six playoff games he's appeared in, the team has won. That includes Game 2 against the New York Yankees when he became the first pitcher in World Series history to record a save with just one pitch.
Dirksen said, "It's a little bit of a challenge" to root for the Dodgers as a Padres fan, but he admits this is a unique circumstance.
"It's special to root for our kids no matter what uniform they're wearing," he said.
Once a year, Vesia returns to his roots to help mentor the next wave of players at his alma mater.
“What’s that fastball look like in person?” ABC 10News asked Tommy Rimoldi, a senior pitcher at the school who throws left-handed, just like Vesia.
“It's insane," Rimoldi said. "It's so crazy how he can just ride it so much and it rides so far. This is insane.”
Vesia and the Dodgers are one game away from winning the World Series. Steele Canyon couldn't be more excited for its hometown hero.
“It's gonna be pretty cool to say that Steele Canyon High School produced a baseball player that went on, succeeded in his dreams, made it to the major leagues, and had a chance to win a World Series ring," Dirksen said. "That's something to brag about, and that's something to be very proud of.”
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