Before Mike Matheny was named manager of the Cardinals, he spent a few years as a part-time assistant baseball coach at a high school in St. Louis called Westminster Christian Academy.
In 2009, Matheny offered tips and advice to an 18-year-old right-hander on the Westminster varsity team named Jacob Turner. And now the two will meet again on a Major League Baseball diamond.
Turner -- a first-round pick of the Tigers in the ’09 amateur draft and currently 21 years of age -- will be on the mound in Thursday’s series-finale against the Cardinals, a team he grew up rooting for now being managed by one of his mentors.
“He’s a special person,” Turner told John Lowe of the Detroit Press when asked Wednesday about the role Matheny played in his young-adult life, “Obviously, I feel like he helped me a lot.”
Matheny has often featured multiple bench guys in day games, but he has the big guns out for Turner. Rafael Furcal bats leadoff, followed by Skip Schumaker, Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, Allen Craig, Yadier Molina, David Freese, Matt Adams and Daniel Descalso. It’s MLB.TV’s Free Game of the Day.
Turner will be making his 2012 debut. He was promoted Thursday morning after posting a 3.43 ERA, 1.26 WHIP and 27/19 K/BB ratio in 42 innings for the Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate in Toledo, Ohio.
