2002 TOPPS BRUCE CHEN
It is always bittersweet when a human time capsule like Bruce Chen retires.
You look back at his first career start– a 21-year old lefty for the division-leading Braves facing a distant-second Mets squad in an essentially meaningless September game– and the names that float through the box score speak of a different era.
Alfonzo, Olerud, Allensworth, Ordonez. Yoshii, Franco, Huskey, McRae. The roster is an elegant haiku of memories…
Chen probably doesn’t wax quite as rhapsodically when he recalls that Labor Day afternoon at old Shea. He lasted only three innings, allowing four earned runs on six hits, including home runs to noted boppers Tony Phillips and Luis Lopez.
The game was sloppy from start to finish, with both teams running a chorus line of pitchers out to the mound. The Mets ultimately prevailed, hanging the loss on the hiss-worthy John Rocker when Alfonzo drilled a clutch two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth to put them ahead to stay, 8-7.
Chen bounced around with Atlanta and Philadelphia for a few years, before coming to the Mets via a trade with the Phillies at the start of the 2001 campaign. He gave the team 11 mediocre starts in 2001, and pitched to three Pirates hitters in the third game of 2002 season; the very next day the Mets sent him to the Expos in a trade that saw seven nonentities switch uniforms.
Major-league scouts learned long ago never to give up on a left arm, so Chen continued to find work throughout the early aughts, moving from Montreal to Cincinnati to Houston to Boston to Baltimore, never living up to his apparent promise. Then in 2005, the Orioles handed him the ball for 32 starts, and he rewarded them by logging his first season with double-digit wins.
He promptly followed that up by going 0-7 with a 6.93 ERA in 2006, managing to allow 137 hits in just 98.2 innings. The rest of that decade was filled with injuries and more poor numbers.
But then in 2010 came the Chenaissance, and a stretch of four seasons that saw him earn 44 wins for the Royals.
He tried to make a go of it with Cleveland this year, but got absolutely jumped to the tune of a 2.842 WHIP in 6.1 innings pitched…
Glad to see you honor Chen this week.
He wasn’t just some random guy that the Braves called up way back when. He was one of their top prospects, one who had consistently put up double-digit strikeout rates in the minors.
Parts of 17 years in the majors – most guys would kill to have a career like that.
It amazes me to think that he was drafted in 1993, back when Clinton was president, Cobain was alive, and Ace of Base ruled the airwaves/our hearts…
History, man.