Whirlwind month lands Tyler Cloyd with Mariners

It all happened fast. Tyler Cloyd was with the Tacoma Rainiers in Fresno, California, on Thursday for the start of a four-game series. He had just finished throwing a bullpen session when Pat Listach, the Triple-A team’s manager, told him the news. The Mariners had called him up.

Four weeks ago, Cloyd wasn’t even part of the Mariners organization. He was playing for an independent team, the Somerset Patriots, in New Jersey. After a month there, he spent 21 days with Tacoma before earning a spot on the Mariners roster. It’s the first time he’s been part of a major-league team since 2013, when he was with the Phillies.

Cloyd called his wife, Tonya, on the way to the airport, but he didn’t have a chance to fully process the call-up until he sat on his flight to Seattle. That’s when he had time to let it sink in – the preparation, the time in the minor leagues and overseas, the elbow injury, the recovery and everything else that led to this point, another shot in the major leagues.

“Coming back from a surgery and getting back to the big leagues this quick is something special for me,” said Cloyd, who went 1-0 with a 1.10 ERA in four starts with the Rainiers. “I’ve been working since 2013 to get back here. We’re here, we’ll enjoy it, but at the same time we’ve got work to do.”

For Cloyd, the whirlwind of the last month has included three different teams and a three-hour time change. His truck is still in New Jersey. Some of his personal belongings are in California, part of a suitcase he had to temporarily leave behind in Fresno. His wife and two children are in Nebraska, with a flight to Seattle scheduled for Wednesday. And he is in the Mariners’ clubhouse.

“Beautiful chaos,” his wife calls it.

Cloyd, who turned 30 last month, joins a carousel of Seattle pitchers that have had to fill in the gaps left by an injury-plagued starting rotation. After Casey Lawrence pitched five solid innings of relief, he was optioned to Tacoma, paving the way for Cloyd.

“We’re trying to get a fresh arm in here, which we’ve done multiple times here over the last few weeks to keep our bullpen afloat,” manager Scott Servais said.

Two days in his baseball career stand out for Cloyd – his major-league debut in 2012 with the Phillies, for whom he made 17 starts and two relief appearances over two seasons. (Cloyd also spent time in the Indians organization in 2014, in South Korea in 2015 and with the Yankees organization in 2016.)

The other day that stands out happened last year, when his big-league career was suddenly in jeopardy. Apart from a minor strain in 2012, Cloyd said he had never had issues with his throwing elbow. As he played in Syracuse, New York, he said it felt like “someone had a torch just sitting on my elbow.”

On May 9, 2016, Cloyd had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow and began an 11-month recovery process.

About halfway through his recovery process, Cloyd said he realized he might have to play in an independent league, where he could prove that his elbow was back to normal.

“I guess it only took three starts, and the Mariners liked what they saw,” Cloyd said. “I felt healthy enough that I could come here and compete. And so we ran with it.”

Before arriving in Tacoma, Cloyd said he had never been to the Pacific Northwest. He wants to take his kids to the Space Needle, which he, someone who has lived in Seattle for less than a week, called the “spear thing.”

Keeping the family together, his wife said, has always been a priority, and Tyler and Tonya Cloyd plan to home-school their two kids, Gracie, 3, and Nicholas, who will turn 2 next week. The family lives in Nebraska during the offseason, but they call the town of Cloyd’s baseball team home during the season. Having kids around, Cloyd’s wife said, lightens the mood.

“When Tyler was first coming up the minor leagues, I would have anxiety,” she said. “I just was a nervous wreck all the time, every time he was pitching. Now I’m just like, ‘Oh, hey, Daddy is out there.’ ”

Cloyd was able to be at home during his rehab process, and he saw his family when Tacoma played in Nebraska and Iowa, but he hasn’t seen them much since he left for New Jersey in April. In the mornings, Tonya Cloyd said she’s been finding framed pictures of Gracie and her dad in the 3-year-old’s bed.

Cloyd is still waiting to play for the Mariners, and there’s always the chance his spot on the roster could disappear as quickly as it came.

But for now, he sits by his Mariners locker under a new name placard that replaced the one written in marker from his first day, and he’s in a big-league clubhouse again.

“Whatever path it has (been),” Cloyd said, “I’m here.”