Jason Lane made his first career start as a pitcher on Monday and put up six innings while allowing just one run, but was saddled with the loss in a 1-0 game against the Atlanta Braves. The San Diego Padres gave Lane two relief appearances in June, to make him one of the few ballplayers to make the transition from position player to pitcher.
Lane played parts of six seasons in the big leagues, mostly with the Houston Astros, as an outfielder where he was a career .241 hitter and had 61 home runs. While it is always impressive when a player goes from position player to pitcher, or vice-versa, those players have nothing on Adam Loewen.
Loewen was the fourth overall pick in the 2002 draft by the Baltimore Orioles as a highly touted left-handed pitcher out of Chipola College. Before the 2004 season, he shot up the Baseball America prospect rankings and sat as the number 13 prospect in all of baseball. He made his big league debut in 2006 and survived parts of three years in the big leagues, but had an ERA of 5.38 and showed a real lack of control, walking 106 batters over 164 innings.
After developing a stress fracture in his shoulder that would keep him from pitching, and the ongoing command issues, he decided to transition to a position player mid-way through the 2008 season. In 2009, he signed a minor league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays as a first baseman.
He spent 2009 in High-A Dunedin, then 2010 in Double-A New Hampshire, and 2011 in Triple-A. Each year his average improved, starting at .236, then .246, before taking advantage of the Pacific Coast League ballparks and hitting .306 for Las Vegas and earning a call-up to the big leagues as a position player.
He parted ways with the Blue Jays and spent time in the New York Mets system in 2012, but was released after the season and resigned with the Blue Jays for the 2013 season.
After realizing his chances of getting back to the big leagues were getting slim, Loewen decided to make another transition, back to pitcher.
He was signed to a minor league deal by the Philadelphia Phillies heading into 2014 and has spent most the season with their Double-A affiliate in Reading, where his is once again a starting pitcher. He has an ERA of 3.84 over two levels this season, and his control is better than in the past as he has walked 31 over 70.1 innings.
He still has plenty of work to put in and really needs things to break right for him, but the 30-year old Loewen has his sights firmly aimed at making it to the big leagues as a pitcher, then as a positions player, and then again as a pitcher. His story is definitely something to root for, especially if you are a fan of the poor performing Phillies.