Palacios brothers share MLB field for the first time

This story was excerpted from Justice delos Santos’ Pirates Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Lianne Palacios had a premonition that this day was coming. She had a belief that her sons, Joshua Palacios and Richie Palacios, would finally have an opportunity to share a Major League field and play against each other on baseball’s biggest stage.

Sure enough, she was correct.

“I’ll definitely remember that forever,” Joshua said. “Today was definitely like a bucket-list thing. My brother and I have always wanted to play against each other in The Show, and it’s a blessing that it could happen today.”

“It was very special,” Richie said. “We dreamed about that and prayed about that since we were kids.”

When the Pirates played the Mets in Queens last week, Joshua and Lianne swung by the MLB Store in New York City. As they perused the store, Lianne bought a Cardinals jersey and hat to represent Richie, who was playing with St. Louis’ Triple-A affiliate. With her husband Richard’s 59th birthday coming up, as well as the Cardinals set to play in Pittsburgh, Lianne had a feeling that Richie would be called up. That feeling was, indeed, accurate.

“Joshua came downstairs and said, ‘Mom, I want you to see your son, you don’t get to see him as often,’” Lianne said. “He’s on FaceTime and I’m looking at the ceiling. I’m like, ‘Richie, what’s going on? I want to see your face.’ And then Joshua said to me, ‘You’ll see him on Monday.’ That was amazing. I didn’t even have words to describe that.”

“I started rejoicing because [Richie] worked so hard this year,” said Richard Palacios, Joshua and Richie’s father who played as high as Triple-A. “Everything that’s happened to him -- being designated for assignment and not knowing where he was going to go, getting traded, going to a new organization. When you get to a new organization, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You just hope that you get a chance to rise to the top and have another opportunity to show that you belong at this level. … I knew when he called me, I said, ‘Oh my God, it’s finally going to happen. It’s finally going to happen. I couldn’t stop smiling.”

On Monday, Joshua, 28, showed Richie, 26, and proved why, in his own words, he's the big brother. He hit a towering home run that cleared the right-field bleachers, drove in a career-high five runs and made a diving catch in left field to end the game. Richie began the game on the bench, but entered as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning and hit an opposite-field single to, appropriately enough, his older brother.

Before Tuesday’s game, Joshua and Richie, both starting in center field, met at home plate to exchange lineup cards. With both brothers in the starting lineup, Richie proved that little brother can play, too. In the top of the fifth inning, Richie launched the first home run of his Major League career into the right-field stands -- a milestone that unfolded on Richard’s birthday, no less.

“We just knew it was going out,” Lianne said. “We knew when big brother said, ‘I’m the big brother,’ we knew that little brother was showing up today. We just knew that ball was going out.”

Added Richard, “We knew Richie was coming back with a response today, and I’m sure Joshua is probably going to come back with a response to Richie.”

Joshua, who had a perfect view of Richie’s home run, had mixed emotions. He was thrilled for his brother, but Richie’s home run came at the expense of Joshua’s teammate, Johan Oviedo and tied the score 1-1.

“I poked the bear yesterday and the boy accepted the challenge,” Joshua said.

Several innings later, Richie sent another fly ball into the Pittsburgh night, albeit one that was well short of clearing the fences. Joshua and Connor Joe convened on Richie’s fly ball, but there was no question as to who was going to make the catch.

“I saw Joe and I was like, ‘No, no, no. I’m catching this thing,’” Joshua said. “I made sure I pimped it a little bit, let him know he needed to go to the weight room.”

This series isn’t the first time Joshua and Richie have donned different uniforms. Along with playing against one another in Little League and high school, Joshua (Indianapolis) and Richie (Columbus) inhabited opposite dugouts in Triple-A earlier this season. Joshua went 10-for-18 (.556) with three doubles, four home runs and six walks (2.056 OPS) and was named the International League Player of the Week. Richie had his own great week, going 8-for-20 (.400) with a double, a home run and five walks (1.100 OPS). At the time, it was the first time Joshua and Richie played one another in pro ball.

“The first time we played each other, I ended up with the better week,” Joshua said. “I knew I had to have a better week or Thanksgiving was going to be tough for me. This time around, it’s a little more valuable in The Show. Whoever has the better series isn’t going to be the one getting cooked at Thanksgiving.”

Joshua and Richie haven’t exclusively been opponents. This past offseason, Joshua and Richie won a championship with Indios de Mayaguez of the Puerto Rican Winter League, the first time either of them had played winter ball. In March, Joshua and Richie both played for Team Netherlands (Lianne was born in Curaçao, a constituent country of the Netherlands).

“It’s been surreal,” Richard said. “It’s a sense of fulfillment. A lot of times, in this game of baseball, you have no control of your future, in a sense. Others are judging and determining whether you should go up or go down or go left or go right. What they can control is preparing themselves, working hard and leveraging the situation to where hopefully they can get an opportunity to show that they belong. It’s a sense of joy that we can’t put in words. This is something that just doesn’t happen on the regular. This is such a historic occasion for our family and for baseball, itself.”

“This is what we, as parents, do,” Lianne said. “We sacrifice so that they can have what they have. We would do it all over again for them to be where they are. We’re not living through them, but we sacrifice for them so that they can live their dream.”