DENVER — Tampa Bay Rays catcher Kenny Piper, 28, made his Major League debut in a 13-9 win over the Colorado Rockies after a last-minute phone call from manager Kevin Cash summoned him from the team hotel, where he had been waiting on standby with his wife and 1 1/2-year-old daughter.
The Rays were caught between catchers after trading Hunter Feduccia to the Dodgers and acquiring Liam Hicks from the Marlins, who couldn’t arrive until Tuesday. Cash called Piper around 4 p.m. Monday and asked where he was. “Get over here,” Cash said. Piper, who had been playing for Double-A Montgomery as recently as Sunday, hustled to the visitors’ clubhouse at Coors Field and was inserted into the starting lineup.
“I don’t know that I could put to words what my thoughts are right now,” Piper said before the game. “This is something that I’ve dreamt of my whole life. It feels very surreal.”
Piper caught all nine innings alongside longtime batterymate Ian Seymour, drew a walk in his first plate appearance and scored his first Major League run on a sacrifice fly by Yandy Díaz. He finished the night with a two-out single up the middle in his final at-bat for his first big league hit.
“Surreal, man. It’s a blast to play with these guys,” Piper said afterward. “That moment was unlike any that I’ve ever felt before. When I got that first hit and the crowd was cheering for me and my teammates were cheering for me, that moment was one that I’ll never forget.”
“We were all super pumped for him, because he’s been such a special player in the organization for quite some time,” Cash said. “He did a heck of a job. When he got the hit there at the end, the dugout erupted.”
Seymour, who learned during his pregame pitcher’s meeting that Piper would be catching him, said the moment carried extra weight given their shared path through the minors. “To see him perform the way he did and grind to get here, you couldn’t be happier for him,” Seymour said.
The Rays selected Piper in the 18th round of the 2021 Draft out of Columbia College of Missouri. A strong defensive catcher with some power, he reached Double-A in 2023 and moved up to Triple-A for parts of 2024 and 2025 but had spent this entire season — his fourth year in Montgomery — back at Double-A before the call.
Piper was optioned back to Double-A Montgomery on Tuesday as the Rays activated Hicks and newly acquired reliever Tyler Wells, but he will remain with the club as part of the taxi squad for the rest of the series against the Rockies.