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By Steve DiMeglio, USA TODAY
AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF a pennant race, barely four months after throwing his first pitch in Class A and 14 months after tossing his final pitch at Fresno State University, Matt Garza was summoned from the minors in early August by the Twins.
With the team's rotation depleted by injury and uncertainty, the Twins weighed the 22-year-old right-hander's promise against the risk of rushing him to the majors amid the intensity of a playoff chase. "We weren't nervous but guarded," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire says. "All of our minor league staff said he was ready to handle this. Plus, he was pitching better than anyone else down there." The lanky 6-foot-4, 195-pound Garza was a combined 14-4 at three minor league levels this year, with a 1.99 ERA and 154 strikeouts in 135 2/3 innings. He earned All-Star berths in the Class A Florida State League and Class AA Eastern League. Backed by those numbers, Garza has been named USA TODAY's Minor League Player of the Year for 2006. This is the second consecutive year a Twin has won the award. In 2005, Garza's teammate, left-hander Francisco Liriano, was the winner. The selection, a result of a survey of the USA TODAY baseball staff and an online vote by fans, is based on prospects' seasons and major league potential. Garza's quick ascension up the minor league ranks, however, wasn't solely the result of his right arm. GARZA TRACES THE REASONS FOR his rapid rise back to June 22, 2002, just a few days after graduating from Washington Union High School in Fresno. On that day, his girlfriend, Serina Ortiz, gave birth to their son, Matthew II. "He made me grow up real fast," Garza said in Baltimore on Aug. 22, the eve of his first major league win, a 4-1 victory against the Orioles. "It gave me some perspective in life, and I threw my heart and soul into him. "You see this little boy, and you see he's so helpless, and you know you are there to protect him. Everything I do is to make his life better." A few days after his son was born, Garza was drafted in the 40th round of the 2002 draft by the Rockies, but he decided that instead of taking a long shot at the pros and leaving his son and girlfriend behind in Fresno, he would go to college and accept a partial scholarship with Fresno State. "I was scared when I told him I was pregnant," Ortiz says, "but he was very supportive the whole time and he just kept assuring me everything would be OK, that everything would work out." With the help of their parents, the two stayed in school while taking care of an infant son, and Garza kept pursuing a dream of playing in the majors. "There's no telling where Matt would be without his son," says Rudy Garza, Matt's father. "When he found out he was going to be a father, he became a man. I told him that no matter what happens you are going to take care of that child. And he did. He lived up to his responsibility." During his senior year, Garza drove Ortiz to her doctor checkups. He changed his son's diapers, helped at feeding time and bought toddler clothes. "He put his son on a pedestal," says Luz Garza, Matt's mother. "When his son was born, he knew he had to support him, that everything in his life he did for his son. He took on the father role like a dad should." Garza's commitment to his family helped him survive his freshman year at Fresno State when he was raising his son, dealing with school and struggling on the mound for a rebuilding program. "The cupboard was bare, so we had no choice but to give him the ball," says Garza's college pitching coach, Tim Montez. "Getting your brains beat in by Rice, Stanford and Cal State-Fullerton, plus being a dad and going to school, well, those situations helped develop the character he has now. You either sink or swim, and to his credit, Matt stood up like a man." Still, Garza came close to quitting before Ortiz changed his mind. "He started to lose faith in himself," she says. "I knew his son was his biggest inspiration, so I told him to think of his son when he was pitching. I asked Matt that: 'If Matthew could talk, what would he tell his daddy to do?' " Garza says the message would be, "Shove it," as in shove it down the throats of the hitters. So under the bill of his cap, he scrawled Matthew's initials on the left side and "Shove it" on the other. Since then, he has added the initials of his daughter, Sierra, the couple's second child. "As a freshman, I was terrible, but I would walk out of the gate after a game and I'd see my son and he'd smile and I'd figure baseball was just a game," says Garza, who was 1-6 with a 9.55 ERA his first year at Fresno State. "There are bigger problems to worry about than what I did on the mound — like what my son's going to eat. Does he need new clothes? Is he healthy?" Despite the humbling setbacks on the mound, Garza continued to work hard, a tribute to his father, a career military man. "My dad is a huge influence," Garza says. "He instilled hard work and determination in me. He's a guy who says if you don't get it right the first time, do it again. And it really didn't fly to try and cut corners." Garza knows that's true with anything he does, especially with raising his children. Little Matthew is now 40 pounds, with a mop of black hair like his father's. "He's just like me," Garza says. "You can't tell us apart when you see our pictures when we were 4. We have the same attitudes. We're the same people. He's just small." NINE MONTHS AGO, GARZA BECAME a father again when Ortiz gave birth to Sierra. That was soon to be followed by this season's meteoric rise, which has taken him to the major leagues. "The goal for me this year was to get to Double-A and then get a shot for Triple-A," he says. "I've far exceeded my goal this season." From his first start in Class A, Garza shot pitching holes in those goals. By his third start for the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings July 25, Garza had proved to be ready for the major leagues. "He had an air about him — an air of confidence — and a presence on the mound that was very impressive," Red Wings manager Stan Cliburn says. "I knew he was good, but I didn't know he was as good as he showed that night against Charlotte." In front of 6,500 fans in Rochester, Garza threw a complete-game, three-hit shutout against the Charlotte Knights, who were running away with the International League's South Division. He struck out eight. On his 122nd pitch, he hit 97 mph on the radar. "When you see something like that," Cliburn says, "you know you have something special." By early August, with Liriano on the disabled list, Kyle Lohse traded to the Reds and Brad Radke pitching with a torn labrum, the Twins needed a starting pitcher and turned to Garza. His Aug. 11 major league debut ended abruptly, however, after he allowed eight hits and seven earned runs in 2 2/3 innings in a 7-1 loss to the Blue Jays. The Twins didn't panic because they knew Garza wouldn't. "I kept telling my bosses that Matt's makeup is a lot stronger than you guys can see," says Twins scout Kevin Bootay, who followed Garza at Fresno State. "He was a man at Fresno State. He had all the tools on the mound, but he also handled school, his responsibility to his son and girlfriend, his baseball. He's very driven. He had a toughness about him that was rare." The Twins had listened to Bootay and selected Garza — who has command of a fastball, slider, curveball and changeup — with the 25th overall pick in the 2005 draft and gave him a $1.4 million signing bonus. "His stuff was electric, but his mental makeup was so great it was a separating factor for us in determining who to draft," says Mike Radcliff, the Twins' scouting director. "He was a man on a mission. He's a determined guy, and he has produced." Garza's first win came in his third start. After allowing five hits and one unearned run against the Orioles and after wiping off the shaving-cream pie that closer Joe Nathan and setup man Juan Rincon pushed in his face during a postgame television interview, Garza called home. "My family means more to me than anything, and I'm living my dream playing baseball," he says. "Now I have to work hard to stay. I know I belong here. I'm going to prove I belong here. The only bad thing about baseball, though, is I can't see my kids every day."
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