Jose Lozada Gives New Meaning To Versatility
By Ricky Keeler
If you remember your days of playing Little League Baseball, you will think back to a time when the coach would try to play you at different positions. When you look at Major League Baseball today, some players need to have the ability to play different positions in order to have a shot at the roster.
Well, one of the Nationals’ prospects down in the Puerto Rican League brought a whole new level to being versatile during a game on Tuesday. The reason for that is he played every single position on the diamond! Yes, this includes pitching.
29-year old Jose Lozada played for the Nats’ AAA affiliate, the Syracuse Chiefs. On Tuesday night, he was the master of all trades in terms of being available at any position for manager Ruben Escalara and his team, the Senadores De San Juan.
He would begin the game at center field and would play left and right field in the second and third innings. He would play first base in the fourth, third inning in the fifth, shortstop in the sixth, second base in the seventh, and catcher in the eighth.
That would be a lot in itself, but during the bottom of the 8th, Lozada capped it all off by coming in to pitch in relief for Eddie Camacho. He would only face two batters but he got both of them out via a pop out to shortstop and fly out to centerfield. The Senadores would lose the game to Cangrejeros de Santurce by a final of 4-1.
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Now, Lozada also had a good game outside of the defense, where he made no errors at any of the positions. He went 0-for-3 with a run scored and stole two bases. During this winter, he is hitting .232 with two home runs and seven RBI’s in 29 games.
Lozada was taken by the Nationals in the 17th round of the 2008 MLB Draft out of Bethune-Cookman College. He spent the 2014 season going back and forth between AAA Syracuse and AA Harrisburg. In 60 games combined at both levels, he hit .279 with one home run and 14 RBI’s. It shouldn’t be too big of a surprise that he pitched in that game considering he has five career appearances at the minor league level (one at Syracuse last year).
As far as the defense goes, he appeared in every position last season, but the bulk of his playing time came in right field (12 games in AAA). Even the Harrisburg Senators’ GM, Randy Whitaker sent out a tweet regarding Lozada:
Our own Jose Lozada played all nine positions in a Puerto Rican Winter League game yesterday. That should make him useful!
— Randy Whitaker (@sensGM) December 31, 2014
Could Lozada be starting a new trend in the game? We will find out, but this is still an incredible accomplishment to see one player play all those positions and make just one error for the season.