American baseball player Jared James Walsh was born on July 30, 1993. He plays first base and the outfield for the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball.
Walsh’s first year as a pro was split between the Arizona League Angels and the Orem Owlz.
In 2016, he played for the Burlington Bees. In 2017 and 2018, he played for the Inland Empire 66ers, the Mobile BayBears, and the Salt Lake Bees. He also came in as a relief pitcher for eight games in 2018.
In 2019, the Angels asked Walsh to come to spring training, where he continued to play both ways.
He went back to Salt Lake to start the new year. On May 15, 2019, his contract was picked up, and he was called up to the major leagues. He played his first game that day against the Minnesota Twins. He went 3 for 4 in his first game.
Walsh got his first RBI on May 26 when he hit a walk-off RBI single against the Texas Rangers. Walsh was second on the team in home runs in 2020, even though he only played in 32 games and had a batting line of.293/.324/.646.
Angels manager Joe Maddon said before the 2021 season that the team didn’t plan to have Walsh pitch. Instead, they were going to focus on his offense and defense, in part because he did so well as a first baseman the year before.
Albert Pujols, who played first base and was the designated hitter for the Angels, was let go in May 2021. This was done in part to give Walsh more playing time.
Walsh’s big year was 2021 when he hit.277/.340/.509 with 29 home runs and 98 RBIs in 144 games and was named to the All-Star team for the American League. He had the lowest on-base percentage in the major leagues (.208) against left-handed pitchers.
Was Jared Walsh A Pitcher?
Yes, Jared Walsh is also a pitcher.
“I played in the instructional league during the fall and was focused solely on pitching,”
“I wanted to work on my mechanics but more importantly to see how my arm would feel and respond. There aren’t a lot of 25-year-olds at instructs, but I was excited to be out there.
“Generally, every team has one position player who gets thrown out on the mound if games get out of hand. With my pitching experience in college, I’ve been that guy. I had a few opportunities and [the Angels] liked what they saw, I guess. I was happy for the chance when they approached me about this.”