D-backs manager Torey Lovullo, son Nick, share special moment at Fall Stars Game

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Nick Lovullo had stood in the box countless times and watched his dad, Torey, wind up to throw a pitch as part of their batting practice sessions. But during Sunday’s Arizona Fall League Fall Stars Game, Nick found himself with a new angle: catching a ball from the D-backs' skipper while down in the squat as part of the game’s first pitch.

“It was really cool,” said Nick. “He threw a great pitch, too. He threw a little baby cutter, it was a strike. I was giving him a hard time leading up to it about not throwing it in the dirt or making me work hard.”

The younger Lovullo has been putting in ample hard work this fall as is. Selected to be a coach with the Mesa Solar Sox alongside other members of the Cubs organization, Nick has served as the High-A South Bend skipper for each of the past two years. It’s the goal of many Minor League players to reach the Fall League, but the same can be said for coaches as well.

Nick, a 20th-round pick of the Red Sox in 2016, ascended as high as Triple-A Pawtucket during his final year in the club’s system in ‘19, but it was at the start of that year – his third straight with High-A Salem – that his future began to crystalize:

“I always felt like whatever clubhouse I was in, I was kind of a leader,” said Nick. “2019 was one of my last years playing … and I felt myself being a veteran presence among a lot of younger players. And I just tried to do everything I could to help, because I knew what it meant to be a professional baseball player and to go about your business the right way and to be what I like to call a winning player, but I felt that not everyone knew how to do that.

“My last few years playing after that, I was like, ‘I think I'm gonna put myself in a leadership and a manager's situation even though I'm playing, so that I can kinda start prepping myself for what that could look like when I'm done playing.’”

That forward thinking put Nick in a position to follow in his dad’s footsteps after he hung up his cleats following the 2021 season. Sure, he had the advantage of being able to lean on Torey – then in his fifth year of managing the D-backs – for advice, but he also knew he’d have to start at the proverbial bottom of the food chain as it pertained to coaching.

After serving as bench coach for Double-A Tennessee in 2022, Nick’s first managerial opportunity came in ‘23 with the club’s Rookie-level Arizona Complex League squad. But much like how the ultimate goal for players is to reach The Show, the same can often be said for coaches. Just ask the elder Lovullo, who spent a decade in a multitude of roles across the Minor Leagues before eventually getting his first coaching gig in the Majors.

“At the time, you don't know why it's happening, but I wouldn't trade the 11 years of player development that I had with the Cleveland Indians/Guardians,” said Torey while joining MLB Network’s Fall Stars Game broadcast. “You want to get to the big leagues as a coach. You want to make an impact on that level. But when I finally did get the opportunity to get to the big leagues, I understood why it happened, because there's basically nothing that I haven't seen yet or I haven't seen before.

“So I tell my son, ‘You have to do the same thing. You're cutting your teeth, you're learning the game and when you finally get that opportunity to go to the big leagues – which I'm sure he will, he's an exceptional baseball mind – you're gonna be ready for that opportunity.’”

If there were any doubt that the managerial apple didn’t fall far from the tree, take this past Father’s Day: Torey got a pregame call from his son, which was odd, considering he was supposed to be in the dugout managing South Bend. His son’s additional spur-of-the-moment gift? A nod that Nick had kept in his back pocket for nearly a month – ejecting an umpire after being summarily shown the showers in his own right.

“We're very level-headed throughout the course of a long season, a steady force for the guys to look to when things are going good or things are going bad,” said Nick. “But that's not to say if something is really important to us or a message really needs to be sent to the team, we're not afraid to kind of express how we're feeling in the right way, in the right circumstance, to stand up for the things that we believe in.”