Trever Miller pitched 13 seasons in the majors. He’d appear in 230 games as a reliever for the Astros and was a member of the 98′ squad that won 102 games. Trever joins us exclusively at The Crawfish Boxes.
Q: You came to Houston as part of a big trade. Where were you when you heard the news?
A: I remember exactly where I was. I was in the hospital; my son was born the day before that. I was actually holding him and taking the phone call, and they told me I was traded. At the time, I could care less, I was just caught up in the emotions of welcoming my son into the world. I was a proud papa at the time.
Q: How much did you know about Houston?
A: I didn’t know anything, really. I had never been there before. I was east coast, brought up through the Tigers organization so I had never really been over there but once I got there, I fell in love with the town and the people.
Q: You came to a good situation as well. That 1998 team was one of the greatest assembled in franchise history. What do you most remember about that season?
A: 1998 was fantastic. We had a lot of future Hall of Famers, and we won lots of ball games. That was my first experience in the playoffs and focusing on the playoff picture.
I was the long man that season coming out of the bullpen, and I went 18 days without getting into a ballgame. That’s how good our starters were. I had to go and do short bullpen sessions with the burn rule just to try to stay sharp.
Q: What happened when you finally got in after such a long layoff?
A: We were playing in Montreal. I’m going back to the hotel with Sean Bergman, who’s scheduled to start the next day. I said to him “tomorrow, you go six innings and get the win by a score of 10-0, and I’ll come in the final three innings and close it out to get my first save.”
Well, it turns out that he pitched six innings, the score was actually 8-0, he left in the 7th with the bases loaded, I came in and got out of that jam by some miracle (laughs) and I pitch two more innings to get the save. In the process, I also got my first big league hit. I hit a double, and that wound up being the 10th run scored. I got my first hit and my first save in the same game! I also pitched for the first time in 18 days!
Q: Did you like playing for Phil Garner?
A: I did. Phil used me a ton. The end of one year I had like 76 appearances.
At the end of that season, Phil looked me right in the eye and said, “I rode you pretty hard this last month, didn’t I?” I was like “yes you did, I did my best.”
So, I get home, and I go to do my first off-season workout, and I can barely even lift a 10 lb. dumbbell to curl. My arm was fried and I spent that whole offseason just trying to get back to neutral.
Q: What do you think of pitching today?
A: The fans seem to love it, so I like it for them. I think there’s too many reviews and I hate the pitcher’s clock. My wife thinks that the clock has created a deal where the romance of baseball is gone. I tend to agree with that.
I don’t see pitching anymore, I see guys trying to throw it as hard as they can. I don’t think I’d get a look from a scout if I only threw in the low 90’s which is what I threw back then.
Q: Final question. Jose Lima was one of your teammates. Do you have a favorite story about Lima?
A: We came up together with Detroit. We had a guy that would serve soup to us in the fall league. Jose was always loud and boisterous. We all loved him, but he irked some of the older people.
So, we are going through the soup line one day, and the man pours soup into our bowls and Lima says something that the man doesn’t like and he takes the giant soup spoon and hits him right over the head with it! (laughs). Soup went flying everywhere.
Jose wanted to fight him, we had to hold him back, we were all dying laughing. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen.
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