DETROIT — Walking out of the Twins clubhouse late Friday night, A.J. Achter had a broad smile on his face and a baseball clutched tightly in his left hand.
The 26-year-old rookie reliever knew exactly where he was headed after an 11-4 win over the Detroit Tigers.
“That was pretty emotional,” Achter said after awarding the game ball from his first major league victory to his mother in a hallway at Comerica Park. “For her to be a part of this and to be here, it’s all around a pretty special moment.”
Cindy Achter is a breast cancer survivor. She underwent a mastectomy last offseason, but neither radiation nor chemotherapy was necessary.
“We’re pretty blessed that she’s doing just fine,” her son said. “She’s doing great now.”
The pitcher’s mother spent a couple of months at home in Oregon, Ohio, to recuperate after her surgery, but she is back at work as a sales associate at the Park Inn in downtown Toledo.
Friday, Cindy Achter again joined a dozen others in making the hour drive up Interstate 75 to watch the Twins play the team her son grew up rooting for.
The Achter (pronounced OCK-ter) rooting section will roughly double Saturday night. Sunday afternoon there will be a “party bus,” A.J. said, of 40 to 50 friends and family members, all of them traveling for free via the TESCO bus company owned by a family friend.
All of them no doubt will wish they were on hand Friday, when a former 46th-round afterthought from nearby Michigan State added another chapter to an already unbelievable journey.
Rod Achter certainly does. The pitcher’s father was able to get to Target Field when Achter made his big-league debut earlier this month, but he couldn’t miss another Friday night football game at Sylvania Northview High School, where he is the defensive coordinator.
“I already have a missed call and a voicemail from him,” Achter said, “so I know he knows the news.”
Not even a 43-28 loss to Maumee could detract from his father’s pride.
Brought into a 6-3 game with two on in the fifth inning, Achter practically roared after securing what he termed the two biggest outs of his career.
First, he got dangerous cleanup hitter Victor Martinez on a fly ball to the warning track in right. That came on the ninth pitch of the confrontation and featured a deafening roar from the home crowd as the ball left Martinez’s bat.
Ten more feet, and Martinez might have had the game-tying three-run homer.
“A long fly ball, but he got him out,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “That’s all that matters. It stayed in the ballpark. We all took a sigh of relief.”
Including Achter.
“Once I saw it go up and once the crowd got into it, I was a little scared for a second,” he said. “Thankfully, it ended up in the right guy’s hands.”
When J.D. Martinez followed with a lineout to center, the 6-foot-5 Achter came striding off the mound, drew back both arms like a bow hunter and punched his bare right fist into his glove.
Typically mild-mannered and unfailingly polite, Achter was a little sheepish afterward when asked about that moment.
“That’s about as much (emotion) as I’ve ever shown,” he said. “There were a lot of emotions out there. I tried to keep them in check, but I did show a little bit. I did all I could to keep it at that.”
Achter worked out of a jam in the sixth, coaxing a double-play grounder and a fly ball to center.
Miguel Cabrera ended Achter’s night in the seventh with a majestic homer into the bullpen, but those six key outs left the ultimate overachiever with a 3.27 earned-run average through 11 big-league innings.
Brian Dozier and Oswaldo Arcia homered for the 22nd and 20th time, respectively, to lead a 15-hit Twins attack and make sure there was a win to be awarded after Twins starter Anthony Swarzak left in the fifth.
That the win went to Achter — on a Michigan State-themed night, no less — was almost too perfect.
“It just felt good to see so many people that have had such an impact on my career,” he said. “For them to see me in a big-league uniform, it’s pretty special. I’m just very thankful for the people I have in my life.”
Follow Mike Berardino at Twitter.com/MikeBerardino.
