Meet the nine desert high schoolers have played Major League Baseball
With Palm Desert grad Travis Adams joining the ranks, there are now nine players who started in the desert and made it to the big leagues.
Travis Adams has dreamed of playing in a Major League Baseball game since as far back as he can remember.
On July 5, after being called up to the Minnesota Twins earlier in the day, it happened. The 2018 Palm Desert graduate was in the bullpen when the bullpen phone rang and he was told he was going to enter the game against the Tampa Bay Rays to start the third inning.
Adams warmed up, then the bullpen doors opened and he stepped through the threshold and on to the field. His parents, Diana and Ryan, were on hand to see his debut. This was it.
“The surprising thing is when it finally happened, I was strangely calm, a lot more calm than I expected to be,” Adams said. “Over the years, you kind of build up that scenario and you think that you’re going to be super-nervous for it, right? But I was actually like relatively calm in that situation which kind of shocked myself.”
Adams, a 6-foot-1 right-handed pitcher, faced his first batter, Taylor Walls of Tampa Bay. He said he had one goal.
“I had to trust my stuff and trust in all my preparation, but I just kept thinking, I want my first pitch in the majors to be a strike,” the 25-year-old said. “For some reason that was important to me.”
Mission accomplished. His first pitch was a strike. He later retired Walls on a groundout to first base.
He had done it. Adams was officially a Major League Baseball player, and no one can ever take that away from him.
In doing so, Adams became the ninth player from a high school in the Coachella Valley to play in a Major League game.
Adams, who was a sixth-round draft pick by Minnesota in 2021, has now pitched in two games with the Twins in his role as a long reliever or spot starter when necessary. In that first outing against the Rays, he was touched up a bit, yielding five earned runs on nine hits in four innings of work. His second outing was much better. Again he entered to start the third inning and pitched four innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates. This time he yielded just two hits and one earned run on a solo homer.
He actually earned the win in that game against Pittsburgh, but he joked that his first MLB win is not what people will probably remember from that game. That’s because his teammate, All-Star Byron Buxton, hit for the cycle that day, giving Adams a front-row seat for the baseball rarity.
“I’ll remember it as being my first win, but I think I might be the only one that remembers that game because of that,” he said. “His accomplishment certainly overshadows mine, but it was just a great day all around to be a part of.”
The Twins won both games Adams has pitched in. His cumulative numbers are 8.0 innings, 11 hits and six earned runs for an ERA of 6.75. He’s thrown a lot of strikes. Of his 135 pitches, 91 have been for strikes. He has four strikeouts and one walk.
Adams said it didn’t take him long in his first career outing to have his “welcome-to-the-big-leagues” moment that showed the wide gulf between Triple-A and the majors.
“I remember against the Rays I faced that guy Aranda,” Adams said, referring to Rays All-Star first baseman Johnathan Aranda. “I threw him a slider that broke like three balls under the zone, and he went down and still managed to hit to the warning track for a double, and I remember thinking, ‘Wow. I guess, this is the big leagues and these guys have the power up here.'”
Adams is getting used to the notion that he is a Major Leaguer and is excited for his first road trip in the big leagues which happens after the All-Star break when the Twins play at Colorado. He’s expecting the mode of transportation to be a bit better than at Triple-A Saint Paul where he started the year.
A hard-to-get-used-to part about being on the major league squad is being in the locker room with or pitching against players you’ve admired growing up as a baseball fan. Getting it through your head that you’re in the same locker room with a guy like Buxton because you belong there, not as some wide-eyed 15-year-old looking for an autograph.
“Yeah, like having Buxton as a teammate, or against Pittsburgh I faced Andrew McCutchen who is a great player I loved watching, and he was with the Giants for a while which was my favorite team,” Adams said. “I was really bummed actually, because I walked him. I really wanted to strike him out, I thought that would’ve been something cool.”
After the series in Colorado, the Twins travel to Dodger Stadium for a series starting Monday and the notion of pitching in that ballpark has Adams excited. As he mentioned, he’s a Giants fan so there will be that motivation, but also being in Southern California will offer some friends and family and ex-Palm Desert teammates a chance to see him play.
He said he’s received a ton of congratulatory texts and calls from supporters from his desert baseball days already, including some Aztec teammates like Sammy Diaz, Max Puls, Jonny Cuevas and Jordan Sprinkle to name a few.
“But I expect to get a few more if I’m playing against the Dodgers,” he said, imagining SoCal friends rooting for him, but wearing Dodger blue. “There will probably be some people there rooting me on.”
Adams is one of four desert products currently in the Major Leagues, joining mainstays Taylor Ward (Shadow Hills) with the Angels, Jeremiah Estrada (Palm Desert) with the Padres who was a teammate of Adams’ in Palm Desert, and Brooks Kriske (Palm Desert) who was just recently called up by the Cubs.
He said he’s proud of the lineage of Palm Desert as he becomes the fifth Aztec to make the majors with a few more knocking at the door.
Adams said this year at Triple A he’s already played against Kriske, Palm Desert grad Andrew Bash who is in the Blue Jays organization and Palm Desert grad Brian Serven who has played in the majors and is currently in Triple A with the Tigers organization.
“There’s a good, I guess legacy there at Palm Desert is a good word for it,” Adams said. “There’s an environment there of expectations and a lot of great people. I’m proud to be from the desert and be part of that.”
Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.
Desert Major Leaguers
These are the nine players who have graduated from a desert high school and gone on to play in the major leagues (in order of number of games played through Thursday, July 17):Â
Taylor Ward (641 games): Shadow Hills grad, outfielder with Los Angeles Angels 2018-presentJeremiah Estrada (125 games): Palm Desert grad, pitcher with the Cubs 2022-2023, Padres 2024-presentBrian Serven (101 games): Palm Desert grad, catcher with the Colorado Rockies 2022-2023, Blue Jays 2024.Tyson Miller (74 games): Shadow Hills grad, pitcher with the Cubs in 2020, Rangers in 2022, Brewers, Dodgers and Mets in 2023, Mariners and Cubs in 2024-currentChris Clapinski (70 games): Palm Desert grad, infielder with the Marlins 1999-2000Tony Perezchica (69 games): Palm Springs grad, infielder with the Giants and Indians 1988-1992Brooks Kriske (21 games): Palm Desert grad, pitcher with the Yankees 2020-21, Orioles in 2021 and Royals in 2023, Cubs in 2025Anthony Claggett (3 games): Palm Springs grad, pitcher with the Yankees and Pirates in 2009Travis Adams (2 games): Palm Desert grad, pitcher with Twins in 2025