{"id":58536,"date":"2026-07-21T09:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T09:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/58536\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T09:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T09:27:08","slug":"emotional-eduardo-valencia-shines-in-tigers-win-honors-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/58536\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional Eduardo Valencia shines in Tigers’ win, honors Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

DETROIT (AP) \u2014 Eduardo Valencia made some history for the Detroit Tigers, got emotional while thanking his family and home country of earthquake-rocked Venezuela<\/a> and then celebrated after the game with a hug from his wife on the field.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old catcher became the 10th Detroit player to homer in his first career plate appearance, helping the Tigers to a 4-1 victory over the Athletics<\/a> on Thursday night that completed a series sweep.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was waiting a lot for this, for my family, for Venezuela and I\u2019m so excited,\u201d Valencia said as his voice cracked and he fought back tears during an on-field interview<\/a> on the Tigers\u2019 broadcast after the game.<\/p>\n

Valencia was called up from Triple-A Toledo earlier in the day with All-Star catcher Dillon Dingler recovering from a bruised right hand. Valencia entered as a pinch-hitter for Kerry Carpenter in the seventh inning against Hogan Harris and sent a 425-foot shot<\/a> to center to cap the scoring for Detroit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just thinking, like, I was trying to hit (with) contact,\u201d Valencia said. \u201cGet a good pitch, just be the most calm that I can do it. I was so excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the first Tigers player to homer in his first big-league at-bat since Akil Baddoo on April 4, 2021.<\/p>\n

The native of Valencia, Venezuela, pointed to the sky and pounded his chest as he rounded the bases with a huge smile, then pointed to his wife in the stands and made a heart symbol with his hands. He later gave her a big hug after the game. <\/p>\n

Valencia\u2019s thoughts were also with his parents, who couldn\u2019t make the trip to see his debut, and the people of Venezuela, who are recovering from a rare double earthquake<\/a> on June 24 that killed at least 920 and injured another 3,360, authorities said. Many more are feared dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is for all Venezuela people,\u201d Valencia said of his big debut, thanking his family and coaches. \u201cThey gave me everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of Valencia\u2019s happy teammates then dumped a bucket of water on him as the fans remaining in the stands cheered.<\/p>\n

Valencia, who stayed in the game as the Tigers\u2019 designated hitter after his homer, was hit by a pitch from Mark Leiter Jr. in his second plate appearance.<\/p>\n

Valencia was signed by the Tigers in 2018 as an 18-year-old player and he appeared in 439 games over eight-plus seasons in the minors before making his big league debut Thursday night. He didn\u2019t reach the Triple-A level until last year, when he played in 50 games with Toledo, and then appeared in 76 games this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, this is so exciting,\u201d Valencia said. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to help the team to win. … I was waiting a lot (time) for this moment. It\u2019s so exciting. … I can\u2019t talk right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT (AP) \u2014 Eduardo Valencia made some history for the Detroit Tigers, got emotional while thanking his family…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[22696,542,4628,22734,22670,20850,22674,22681,22697,154,22695,22736,22735,14236,22737,20340,1760,396,95,564,23898],"class_list":["post-58536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-valencia","tag-akil-baddoo","tag-baseball","tag-central-america","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-dillon-dingler","tag-earthquakes","tag-eduardo-valencia","tag-hogan-harris","tag-kerry-carpenter","tag-latin-america","tag-mark-leiter","tag-mi-state-wire","tag-michigan","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-natural-disasters","tag-south-america","tag-sports","tag-valencia","tag-venezuela","tag-venezuela-earthquakes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}