Kristin Garcia had just flown back to Connecticut from Seattle where her son, Brandyn, had made his major-league debut with the Mariners.
No sooner had she arrived back at her Granby home, however, than the news came that her son had been traded. Brandyn, a 6-foot-4 lefthander, was dealt to Arizona as part of the deal that brought Josh Naylor to the Mariners. No, Kristin Garcia didn't hop back on a plane for Pittsburgh, where the Diamondbacks were playing. It all happened too quickly.
But Brandyn's travel plans were hardly through. After about a week with the Diamondbacks and appearances in Pittsburgh and Detroit, he was sent down to Triple-A Reno, where he's been since Aug. 1. It's all been part of a whirlwind season for Garcia, 25, who began with the Mariners' Double-A affiliate in Arkansas, got promoted to Triple-A Tacoma on June 24, called up to Seattle on July 21 and traded three days later.
"Everything has been really crazy the last few weeks," he said recently by phone. "But it's everything I've wanted, so it's good."
Indeed, a player can only make his major-league debut once, and Garcia did so that July 21 against Milwaukee. With his mom, sister, fiancee, agent and members of his summer-ball host family at Seattle's T-Mobile Park, Garcia came on in the eighth inning and gave up four hits and an earned run. Two nights later, he bounced back with a hitless inning of relief against the Brewers.
"That was really exciting," he recalled. "Obviously, I've been working towards that since I was a kid in Connecticut. It's been crazy. It was good for my family to go out there and experience it, too. That's something I'll never forget."
The next day, he was traded to the Diamondbacks.
"It was really cool and really fun being able to experience the Mariners," said Garcia, an 11th-round pick by the organization in 2023. "That's something I'll forever be grateful for. They developed me out of college and helped me get to the level where I was at."
But, the way Garcia sees it, "The Diamondbacks wanted me more than the Mariners wanted to keep me. And that says a lot. It's something I'm really, really excited to have the opportunity for."
Garcia, 25, pitched a hitless inning of relief in his Diamondback debut on July 27. Two night later in Detroit, however, he got hit hard (four hits, three runs in just 1/3 of an inning) and was soon sent to Reno.
Born in Newport, R.I., Garcia's family moved to Granby when he was 5 and he grew up there, attending elementary and middle schools and his freshman year at Granby Memorial.
After that, he enrolled at the Masters School, the small, Christian school in Simsbury, to play alongside the Northeast Dragons travel ball players he'd been teammates with since age 9. His dynamic left arm got him recruited to Quinnipiac, where he spent three years, going 5-13 with a 6.09 ERA, but striking out 121 batters in 105 innings.
"I look back at that and never, ever regret going there out of high school," Garcia said. "Those three years I developed as a person and as a baseball player so much. It's something I look back on as my big 'flip-the-switch' years."
Switch flipped, Garcia transferred to Texas A&M for his final season of college ball. Once again, his statistics weren't mind-blowing (3-3, 5.56 ERA in 27 relief outings) but the flashes of dominance were there: 56 K's in 43 2/3 innings and a .213 batting average against.
"I finally decided that it was baseball, baseball, baseball," he said of his one year at A&M. "That's what I needed to commit to if I wanted to accomplish my dreams."
Garcia made nine relief outings across two levels after being drafted in 2023, then pitched almost exclusively as a starter last season. And he pitched great, going 6-2 with a 2.25 ERA and striking out 134 in 116 innings between High-A Everett and Arkansas. But in the offseason, he sat down with Mariners' brass and mapped out his future.
With the Mariners boasting one of the top starting rotations in Major League Baseball, the decision was made to put Garcia back in the bullpen to start this season.
"They basically told me that my chances of being a starter and sticking as a starter in the Mariners' system was really, really low, just because of how good they are," he recalled. "They said, 'You have a chance to come be a bullpen arm and make a big impact this year.'"
That was all Garcia needed to hear to be down with the decision.
"My goal is to play in the big leagues, it wasn't to be a starter or a reliever," he noted. "Whatever you guys think gives me a chance to do that, that's what I'm down for."
Now, Garcia is in a different organization, at Triple-A Reno, where batters are hitting just .148 against him and he's notched 11 strikeouts in eight innings of relief. He's trying to get more innings under his belt so he can go into the offseason with more options, if he wants to consider going back to being a starter.
"To be able to throw more innings here is going to be good because it refines command, gets me more reps, rather than just going one inning, and being able to go full-tilt next year in spring training," he said. "If I stay here for the rest of the year and get the chance to stay up there longer next year, that's what I'm willing to do."
Dave Borges is a sports reporter for Hearst Connecticut Media Group. An award-winning journalist, Dave has covered the UConn men's basketball team since 2007, including coverage of five Final Fours and four national championships (2011, 2014, 2023 and 2024). He has been an Associated Press Top 25 poll voter since 2009 and was named NSMA Connecticut Sportswriter of the Year in 2019. Dave has authored two books, "Rebound: The Incredible Story of UConn Basketball's Comeback from Defeat to Dominance," and "Images of Baseball: The Pawtucket Red Sox." He also covers baseball and was a beat writer chronicling the 2004 World Series-champion Boston Red Sox. Dave has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2014.