Former Southeast Missouri State pitcher Winkelman makes minor league debut

Two weeks ago Alex Winkelman was drafted by the Houston Astros and he's since bounced around from place to place before finally arriving at his new home with the Greeneville Astros.

Winkelman was in Cotuit, Massachusetts, pitching in the Cape Cod league when he was selected in the 21st round of the 2015 MLB Draft by the Astros on June 10. He spent a few days with his family in his hometown of Crystal City, Missouri, before flying to Orlando, Florida, to be evaluated by the Astros organization.

The Southeast Missouri State pitcher, who just completed his junior season, signed a contract with the Astros on June 16 and moved to Greeneville, Tennessee, where his journey on a professional career is starting with the Rookie-level affiliate of Houston.

"I think it's sunk in because they just kind of throw you into it," Winkelman said about playing professionally. *... I think it's just something that you get thrown into and you just kind of go along with it. Baseball's always baseball regardless of where you're at. But I'm sure when I step out on the mound for the first time in a game that it'll be a nice feeling and it'll still sink in a little bit when that happens as well."

That moment happened Tuesday night when Greenville faced the Bristol Pirates in Bristol, Virginia.

Winkelman made a dramatic professional debut, entering the game in the bottom of the seventh inning and striking out the side with the Astros clinging to a 6-5 lead. He followed that with a hitless eighth, pitching around an error and a walk with two pop outs and a fly out before calling it a night in Greeneville's 7-6 victory.

Bristol was just an hour trip from where Winkelman now resides.

"It's quiet. It's a pretty small town," Winkelman said about Greeneville. "In the summer it's pretty empty. It's the home of Tusculum College, which is a Division II school, but with it being summer there's not a whole lot of people around. It's just the normal small-town feel. *... It's pretty quiet compared to Cape Girardeau when I'm usually there."

The short time that Winkelman's been in Greeneville has been packed as the new players go through a mini-camp to learn the ways of the Astros organization.

"It's something that you want to do -- you want to get involved and get to know everyone as quick as possible," Winkelman said. "And we've had what they call rovers, which is basically scouts, and they go from each minor league club within the organization and they go up and down and teach, so we had those guys this week down here with us so I'm going to learn a lot from those guys because they've been doing it for a long time. That part was really cool. Now it's just nice to meet the team. All these new faces I'm still getting acquainted to. It's nice though."

Some of those new faces for the left-handed pitcher to learn are the coaching staff: manager Lamarr Rogers, coach Luis Mateo, hitting coach Cesar Cedeno and pitching coach Joshua Miller.

"It's good to learn from them, and it's been nice to hear what they think, their take on me, basically. Right now they're not doing too much with me as far as changing anything," Winkelman said. "It's difficult to change something midseason, so they're just kind of looking and seeing what they see from me and then telling me what they think and just kind of moving forward, so hopefully the success will just come from where I'm at right now and then they'll just make tweaks and things like that to me as they go along."

He believes the Astros want him to be a starting pitcher, but he's been told he'll be mixed in as a reliever a couple of times before he gets a start.

"I think that they just don't want to throw you right into a start and have the whole game by yourself," Winkelman said. "I'm going to get used to it, get a feel for it out of the bullpen the first maybe week or so, and then we'll see what happens after that."

Winkelman, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound lefty, finished his junior season at Southeast with a 4.32 ERA in 98 innings. He was 4-3 in 15 starts with one complete game and one save and held opponents to a batting average of .248. He was second in the Ohio Valley Conference only to teammate Joey Lucchesi with 92 strikeouts as he helped the Redhawks to back-to-back OVC regular-season titles under coach Steve Bieser, who he visited with briefly before leaving Cape Girardeau.

"Basically he just gave me advice to just go out and go after people -- be confident in what I'm doing," Winkelman said. "He was just excited and supportive of me, so it was nice to stop by and see him before I headed out."

Winkelman's biggest source of support is his family, who will be making the nearly nine-hour trek for Greeneville's home opener at Pioneer Park on Thursday.

"They're crazy supportive. They're actually heading down this weekend. It's our home opener," Winkelman said. "I had to fly to Florida and then to Tennessee so I haven't had a car, so they're going to drive my car down and watch a few games of baseball and then head back up towards St. Louis again. They're going to get a chance to see where I'm at and watch a few baseball games.

"Obviously distance isn't really a problem for them," Winkelman said with a laugh. "They'll always come and watch me and support me, so getting a chance to see them in a couple of days, that's pretty exciting."