#Yankees’ Deivi Garcia excited to pitch where ‘legend’ Pedro Martinez did

Growing up with Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez as his childhood idol, Deivi Garcia always dreamed of pitching at Fenway Park.

But as the 21-year-old right-handed hurler prepares to take the mound in Boston for the first time in his big league career, he can’t help but be shocked by how quickly he got to the big stage.

“He’s a legend, he’s a legend here,” Garcia said on a Zoom call before the Yankees extended their winning streak to 10 games in their 8-0 win over the Red Sox. “A lot of exciting games here in this stadium and my dad even told me that, about all those great games and everything that went on.

“He told me to go out there and do the best you can for your team.”

Garcia will likely have just one more start after Saturday night’s matchup against the Red Sox to prepare for the first postseason of his career. And taking a 2-1 record and a 3.28 ERA, which is just barely higher than both Gerrit Cole and Masahiro Tanaka, into his fifth start of his MLB career, Garcia admitted that he’s thought a lot about what it’ll be like to compete in a postseason game.

“It’s something that I’ve thought about a lot from Day 1, from the day that I got the call to join the team in the big leagues,” he said of pitching for the Yankees in the postseason. “Playoffs are big, that’s why I keep working really hard, to hopefully help out when the time comes. Playoffs, it’s big for the team and it’s big for me.”

Garcia has held his own through his first four starts with the Yankees, which included going seven innings in his past two starts. His quick adjustment to the big leagues isn’t surprising, however, considering Garcia bulldozed his way through four levels of baseball in the past two seasons before receiving his first call up.

He went from High-A ball to Double-A after just four starts before joining the Trenton Thunder following just 11 games last season. The Yankees then moved the then-20-year-old to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre after dominating with the Thunder, and he was seriously considered for the 26-man roster when spring training was happening in March.

Since joining the Yankees, Garcia has displayed a tremendous amount of confidence and a sureness of himself that is hard to come by in such a young player.

“That’s a trait that I have and it goes back to when I was a little kid,” he said. “My family tells me that kind of patience and sureness of doing things, I showed at an early age and that I look like my grandpa. It probably comes from him. It’s a trait that I have and it helps me deal with different situations in the game.”