ANAHEIM, Calif. – Talk about making it to the big time!
Former Slippery Rock University standout Matt Adams will be in a Major League Baseball uniform for the first time in his career Sunday night, and it will take place when the defending world champion St. Louis Cardinals take on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in an ESPN nationally-televised game (8 p.m. Eastern time).
When Adams makes his first official appearance with the Cardinals, he will become the first Slippery Rock product to play in an MLB game.
Adams, who until Sunday was the first starting first baseman for the Cardinals' triple-A minor-league affiliate, the Memphis Redbirds, got his long-awaited call to join the Cardinals' MLB club in the wake of a knee injury sustained Saturday night by the veteran MLB first baseman Lance Berkman.
The wheels of Adams' promotion were set in motion moments after Berkman sustained the injury. Adams at the time was playing in a Redbirds' Pacific Coast League game in Las Vegas, but was pulled from the game in the fourth inning.
Adams was hitting .340 and had a .603 slugging percentage, 10 doubles, nine home runs and 27 RBIs in 37 Redbirds' games when he got the call to join the big-league team. He had a double in two at-bats Saturday prior to being lifted. The previous night, Adams was 4-for-5 with a double, two home runs, including a grand slam, and collected five RBIs in 9-6 Redbirds' win in Las Vegas.
A native of Philipsburg and graduate of Philipsburg-Osceola High School, Adams was the Cardinals' 23rd-round pick and the 699th overall pick in the 2009 MLB June Amateur Draft after earning Division II national Player of the Year honors.
Adams has feasted on professional pitching at every stop he's made in his short career.
The left-handed hitting Adams batted .375 with 10 doubles, 12 home runs and 52 RBIs in his rookie season (2009) while splitting time between the Cardinals' Class A teams in Johnson City, Tenn., and Batavia, N.Y.
In 2010, Adams batted .310 with 41 doubles, 22 HRs and 88 RBI to earn mid-season and postseason Midwest League all-star honors for Quad Cities.
Last summer (2011), Adams batted .300 with 23 doubles, two triples, 32 HRs and 101 RBI for Class AA Springfield (Mo.), earned mid-season and postseason all-star honors and was named as the Texas League Player of the Year.
Adams' prodigious offensive numbers come as no surprise to Rock fans, who saw him compile a .453 career batting average and .746 career slugging percentage, both of which are school records, in his three seasons with the Green and White.
The only player in Rock history to bat .400 or better in three consecutive seasons, Adams also set school records with a nation-leading .495 batting average, .853 slugging percentage, 91 hits and 24 doubles in 2009, a season in which he collected 64 RBIs, the third-highest total in school history.
Adams' performance in 2009 earned him the Daktronics, Inc. Division II Player of the Year honor, first-team All-America citations from both Daktronics and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and a second-team All-America honor from the American Baseball Coaches Association.
Adams was also named as the 2009 regional Player of the Year by all three organizations, received the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-Western Division Player of the Year in voting by the division's head coaches and earned a third consecutive first-team All-PSAC-West honor.
Adams also earned third-team NCBWA All-America honors as a freshman and second-team NCBWA All-America and honorable mention ABCA All-America status as a sophomore.
