ORONO —\u00a0Wednesday was opening day for the MLB, and two former Maine Black Bears have clinched roster spots in the big leagues to open the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
Both\u00a0Cody Lawyerson\u00a0and Matt Pushard\u00a0have been named to opening day rosters. Lawyerson\u00a0will suit up for the Minnesota Twins, and Pushard\u00a0for the St. Louis Cardinals.<\/p>\n
Lawyerson\u00a0was drafted in the 14th round of the 2019 MLB draft, and Pushard was an undrafted free agent in 2022 and signed with the Cardinals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both played under Maine head coach Nick Derba, who says he is incredibly proud of how far they have come.<\/p>\n
“Behind their parents, I’m probably the third happiest person,” said Derba. “It’s mom and dad, and then it’s me. I can’t be more thankful or more appreciative of their time here, and those guys deserve everything they get.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lawyerson and Pushard\u00a0are just two of the three former Black Bears to be placed on an active MLB roster. The third is Astros’ all star Jeremy Pena who won the World Series in 2022 and was the series MVP. Derba\u00a0expressed not only how great it is to have three former players in the big leagues, but also how rare it is.<\/p>\n
“There are not too many programs that have three MLB players in their history, let alone three in current standing,” said Derba. “For me personally, it’s just really exciting to see those guys go out their a live a real dream.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORONO —\u00a0Wednesday was opening day for the MLB, and two former Maine Black Bears have clinched roster spots…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2276],"tags":[30833,5,2291,4,1586],"class_list":{"0":"post-643147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-draft","8":"tag-bangor-local-sports","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-major-league-baseball-draft","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116291599390100233","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}