ST PAUL, Minn. — Dallas Keuchel knows all about winning.
He won the World Series with the Houston Astros twice, two golden gloves and the Cy Young award in 2014. He even won a state championship in high school.
But he had to wait seven months in the middle of the baseball season, not just to win, but to return to the mound.
After spending the 2022 season with the White Sox, the Diamondbacks and the Rangers, Keuchel thought it might be time to hang it up.
“I was kind of OK with just walking away," said Keuchel. "Various injuries over the years have set me back.”
At 35, he was fine with a little time off.
“I’ve gotten a lot of golf in, which I’ve picked up the past year and a half or so."
But he wasn’t sure if he had already seen the twilight of his career.
“I kind of left the door halfway open, halfway closed, and the body just kind of got better physically and then that kind of helped my mind out where I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to push myself and see where this thing goes,’” he said.
Turns out, the push paid off.
“I’m feeling great, got the itch, threw for some teams, some teams that I would sign for, and here I am,” said Keuchel, who signed with the Minnesota Twins on June 22.
“What’s motivating, you to go in and work every day and constantly see progress like that?”
“Getting healthy kind of reminded me of how good I could be when I’m out there, and just having a free mind to do some of the things I have done or have succeeded or outweighed expectations…
For Keuchel, it’s all for one goal.
“The only thing that I wanna do is win, and that’s what it boils down to.”
But the will to win doesn’t diminish just how big the hill seems when you haven’t started in seven months.
“The nerves are always a big thing," he said. "I think if anybody said something different, they’d be lying.”
Despite the time off and the uncertainty of his career, Keuchel is exactly where he wants to be.
"A lot of that gives me some pure joy and happiness, too, because I know even when I broke in and started doing well, it was, ‘Well, how is this guy doing this’ and quite a few years have gone by where people are always like, ‘I don’t know how it’s being done,’ but it’s being done,” said Keuchel.
This wily veteran is still hanging around.
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