Cleveland – After the Twins defeated the Indians on Friday, righthander Mike Morin called his fiancée, Amy, seeking an update.
"I was just asking her, 'Hey, how is it? How was it?' " Morin said. "She's like, 'It's really awesome. They have a no-hitter going.' "
Amy Nece was at the Angels-Mariners game. Morin and Nece are close friends with Carli Skaggs and were close friends of her late husband, Tyler Skaggs, who passed away unexpectedly on July 1 while the team was on a road trip to Texas. Morin and Amy spent the All-Star break in California with Carli, and Amy was in attendance on Friday as the Angels honored Skaggs. Skaggs' mother, Debbie, threw out the first pitch, and the entire team wore Skaggs' No. 45 in the game.
The emotional night, the Angels' first game at home since the tragedy, was capped by a combined no-hitter. Morin had showered, changed and returned to the team hotel by then, where he watched the final outs on his phone. Then he watched as the Angels took off their Skaggs jerseys and laid them on the pitcher's mound.
"To see it kind of go down like that, with everyone to put their jerseys on the mound, that will be the snapshot that I would take from this," Morin said.
Morin, Blake Parker and C.J. Cron were Skaggs' teammates with the Angels. They all attended Skaggs' wedding in Malibu, Calif. And, like everyone who knew Skaggs, his passing has hit them hard. Morin is moving forward, relying on his baseball family for support while supporting Carli in any way he can.
Having Amy there, and being able to talk with her during the game, made him feel, in a way, that he was there as well.
"I've been able to kind of talk to a couple of my friends that are still over there," Morin said. "Cron and I and Parker have kind of been able to lean on each other. It's a little weird feeling a little disconnected being here but at least to have a couple of the guys here that are kind of going through the same thing — and everyone has been super supportive."
