(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
   Richie Palacios traded to Tampa Bay Rays
Nederlands
  ST. PETERSBURG, Florida / ST. LOUIS, Missouri (USA) -
Outfielder Richie Palacios was traded to Tampa Bay Rays on Friday (January 5) by St. Louis Cardinals for whom he had played since June last year.
In March last year, Palacios made his debut in the Netherlands Team and participated in the World Baseball Classic.
...Richie Palacios hitting for the...
...Netherlands Team during the 2023...
...World Baseball Classic in Taiwan...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
The 26-year old Palacios was born in Brooklyn, New York (USA), as was his brother Josh Palacios, who is two years older.
As their mother Lianne was born on Curaçao, both are eligible to represent the Netherlands.
Both made their debut in the Major League in recent years.
Richie Palacios made his debut during the 2022 season.
He then played in 54 games for Cleveland Guardians and collected 26 basehits, including six doubles.
Palacios batted .232 and had 10 RBI's.
In March last year, the outfielder was optioned to Triple-A and in early June, Palacios was designated for assignment.
Shortly thereafter, he was traded to St. Louis Cardinals, who assigned him to its Triple-A team, Memphis Redbirds.
A month later, on August 17, Palacios was recalled to the Major League-team and made his comeback at the highest level.
In the remainder of the 2023 season, Palacios played in 32 games and produced 24 basehits, including six doubles and six homeruns.
He scored nine runs and batted in 16.
On January 5, St. Louis traded Palacios to Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for righthanded pitcher Andrew Kittredge.
He currently is on the 40-man roster of his new club.
Josh Palacios, also an outfielder, played in 13 games for Toronto Blue Jays in 2021.
After being designated for assignment in April 2022, he was claimed by Washington Nationals four days later.
Palacios played in 29 games for Washington during the 2022 season.
In December 2022, Palacios, who then was on a Minor League-roster, was claimed by the Triple-A team of Pittsburgh Pirates.
2023 was his most productive season so far, as he played in 91 games for Pittsburgh and batted .239 with 59 basehits, including ten homeruns.
He currently is on the 40-man roster of Pittsburgh for the upcoming season.
On August 21 last year, the Palacios-brothers played against each other for the first time at the Major League-level.
On that day, Josh homered and batted in five runs for Pittsburgh in an 11-1 win, while Richie was inserted as pinch-hitter by St. Louis and delivered a single.
The next day, both were the starting centerfielder for their respective club.
Before the game, they exchanged the line-up cards to the Home Plate Umpire.
In this game, Richie hit his first Major League-homerun on what also happened to be the birthday of his father Richard, who was in attendance with their mother Lianne.
In the 2022-2023 Winter Season, Richie and Josh both played for Indios de Mayaguez in Puerto Rico, winning the Championship-title.
In January last year, the Palacios-brothers were named to the preliminary roster of the Netherlands Team for the World Baseball Classic.
They made their Orange-debut in some exhibition-games and then played their first official international games during the Classic in Taiwan.
Josh appeared in all four games the team played, three of them as rightfielder, one as pinch-runner.
Richie took part in one game as designated hitter.
In three games, Josh was 1-for-9 (.111), scored once, batted in one run and struckout three times.
Richie was 0-for-3 with one strikeout in his lone game.
For the Netherlands Team, the Classic ended in a big disappointment, as the team was surprisingly eliminated in the First Round.
In the previous two editions in 2013 and 2017, the team had reached the Semi-Final.
(January 5)
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