HOUSTON -- Stephen and Edrice Matthews were scheduled to hop on an airplane Saturday morning to fly to Atlanta to watch their son, Astros No. 1 prospect Brice Matthews, compete in the All-Star Futures Game in Truist Park. Then came the phone call that changed those plans, along with the life of their son.
Brice Matthews first called his father Thursday afternoon and asked him if he could talk, saying he had some information about the Futures Game, before looping in his mother for a three-way call.
“He’s like, ‘Well, instead of you guys coming to the Futures Game, how about y’all stay at home and watch me at Daikin Park?’” Stephen Matthews said. “I said, ‘Yeah, that will work.’”
Tears started flowing on all three ends of the line.
“It was happy tears,” Edrice Matthews said. “I still get emotional about it. It was excitement. You feel every feeling -- you feel thankful, grateful, you reflect on all the days from when he was little until now. I went to the grocery store and was crying and in tears thinking about it. I’ve had every emotion in the last 24 hours.”
Brice Matthews (MLB No. 98) flew from Oklahoma City to Houston on Friday and was in the lineup at second base for Friday’s games against the Rangers, debuting in his hometown and for the team he grew up cheering for in the suburb of Humble, Texas. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in the Astros’ 7-3 loss to the Rangers -- Houston’s season-high fourth loss in a row.
“Growing up here, seeing so many different moments from this team in all different facets and now from being here as a fan to being here as a player, I couldn’t have asked for anything more than this,” Brice said.
A product of the Astros Youth Academy, Matthews was a two-sport standout at Atascocita High School and was taken in the first round by the Astros out of the University of Nebraska two years ago. He was slashing .283/.400/.476 with 10 homers, 39 RBIs and 25 steals at Triple-A Sugar Land.
He earned Astros Minor League Player of the Month honors in June hitting .306 in 25 games with six doubles, three triples, four home runs and 16 RBIs while posting a .551 slugging percentage and a .960 OPS. He also hit for the cycle on May 10 at Salt Lake.
Matthews joined the active roster as another Nebraska product -- outfielder Jake Meyers -- landed on the 10-day injured list Friday with a calf strain, retroactive to Thursday. Astros manager Joe Espada said Matthews will get regular at-bats at second base, but cautioned he’s still an unfinished product.
“But it’s important for us -- and I reminded him today -- there’s still some development that needs to go on,” Espada said. “I need to keep an eye on the volume, and the production, and the productivity and the quality of his work. Right now, the plan is to let him play. Absolutely.”
Matthews was a bit of a free swinger in Triple-A, and making his debut against Rangers starter Jack Leiter -- and potentially facing Jacob deGrom on Saturday and Nathan Eovaldi on Sunday -- isn’t exactly a soft landing spot.
“It’s a good test for me to see where I’m at, see the adjustments I need to make and how to establish myself and get ready to play,” he said.
Matthews showed up at the Urban Youth Academy when he was about 9 years old and immediately made a strong impression on the staff with his positive attitude. He’s the first player from the Astros UYA to reach the big leagues.
“He was a young man that was very mature at a very early age,” said former UYA director Daryl Wade. “He had his head down and was a good kid. Nothing got too big for him. You always hear the term ‘grinding’ in baseball, and he was grinding at 8, 9 years old.”
Matthews got emotional on the flight to Houston and again Friday when he was asked to recall his journey from the Youth Academy to Daikin Park, where he took batting practice with Jose Altuve -- a player he once watched from the stands.
“I couldn’t have asked for anything more than this,” he said. “It’s unbelievable, and I’m extremely grateful. God has blessed me to be in this position with the team that is here, the coach and the staff, my family and my friends. All the support, all the love they’ve given me, it’s been great.”