CLEVELAND -- On Thursday afternoon, Cooper Ingle was scrolling his phone in a hotel room with pitcher Trenton Denholm ahead of the Columbus Clippers’ game later that day against the Omaha Storm Chasers.
After a couple minutes, there was a knock on their door, which neither player really regarded considering they assumed it was a member of the hotel’s staff trying to give them fresh towels they didn’t need.
“We’re good,” Ingle said in response to the knocks.
Then they knocked again. And again.
After the third knock, Denholm got up and opened the door to find Clippers manager Andy Tracy staring back at him.
“Well, this is different,” Ingle thought to himself.
While Ingle was out of the Clippers’ lineup that day, Tracy started a conversation asking him if he’d be willing to pinch-hit later in the game should the Clippers suffer an injury.
But, as soon as Ingle could get a response out of his mouth, Tracy informed Ingle that he had been called up to the big leagues.
“Pretty cool moment,” Ingle said with a smile at Progressive Field on Friday afternoon.
Three hours later, Ingle (who's ranked as the Guardians' No. 3 prospect and No. 68 overall) stepped to the plate for his big league debut, where he grounded out to Mariners second baseman Cole Young in his first at-bat. He ended up going 0-for-2 with a walk in Cleveland’s 3-1 loss to the Mariners.
As soon as Ingle got the news of his call-up, he called his dad Steve, who was some 822 miles away in Asheville, North Carolina. When Cooper asked if he could move the call to FaceTime, Steve walked downstairs in their home to be with his wife, Alicia, who was working with a client in the nail salon in their home.
Once Cooper let them know he had been called up, Alicia and Steve started screaming and crying in celebration.
They hopped on a plane out of Asheville Friday morning with more than enough time to make it to Progressive Field, where they were sitting behind home plate for Ingle’s debut.
“It’s been a great ride,” Steve Ingle said.
That’s a far cry from 2023 when Cleveland picked Ingle in the fourth round of the MLB Draft and Cooper had to explain to Alicia who the Guardians were.
“At that moment I knew we were going to love the Guardians,” she said with a huge smile.
While Ingle had been tearing things up in the Minors all season, the biggest move that helped jump start his ascension to the Majors happened earlier this month, when the Guardians began giving him reps in the outfield after he had spent the start of his Cleveland career working at catcher.
Although he only played seven games in the outfield in the minors, he could quickly eclipse that mark in the big leagues. Manager Stephen Vogt said Friday that Ingle will mostly play at designated hitter and left field with the Guardians.
“I'm going to be talking to a lot of the outfielders,” Ingle said. “Ultimately I think reps [in the outfield] are what’s going to help the most.”
But that defensive positioning is secondary to what he can do with the bat.
Ingle opened the year rooming in the minors with Travis Bazzana, where they always made a point to watch highlights from the Guardians’ game that day.
Twelve days ago, Ingle led off for Triple-A Columbus in a game where Kahlil Watson hit third.
On Friday, Ingle, Bazzana and Watson occupied three of the top five spots in the Guardians’ lineup against Seattle.
“You don't want to put somebody in a spot where they feel the urge to put more pressure on themself, but Coop's been hitting [at] the top of the order in Triple-A,” Vogt said. “Just felt like his bat fits right there in that five hole.”
Along with that first inning groundout, he worked a walk in the fourth inning before grounding out to Young again in the seventh.
Even if his at-bat in the first inning didn’t result in him getting a hit, Vogt was happy with the process, as Ingle worked a 3-0 count before squaring up a sinker over the middle of the plate.
“I gave him the green light,” Vogt said postgame. “We’ve never seen him in that scenario … that’s probably the best pitch you’re going to get to hit, so why not. He was on time for it and hit it hard, he just hit it right at someone. It shows he’s not scared to be here.”
While Ingle’s name has been on the tip of seemingly every Guardians fan’s tongue for the better part of the past month, Alicia and Steve tried their hardest to take things a day at a time.
“All of our friends were always asking and we always told them he’s great,” Alicia said. “I’m always going to think he’s great; I’m his mom.”
But they got a chance to let that mentality go on Friday, when Ingle was introduced to raucous chants of “Coop” from the fans at Progressive Field as he dug into a big league batter’s box for the first time in his career.
“We’re just riding the wave,” Steve said.