The string of injuries started in the summer of 2014, when right-handed pitcher Kevin Stevens was heading into his junior year at Cienega High School in Pima County, Arizona. 
 
He partially tore his ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) and found brief relief with a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection. Soon after, a hyperextended elbow caused the UCL to partially tear again, costing him his junior season and preventing him from pitching as a senior. 
 
Stevens went on to play for Yavapai College, but he was hit with shoulder tendinitis his freshman year. His scholarship was taken away and he was redshirted. He pitched 13.1 innings as a redshirt freshman in 2018 with a fully torn UCL. 
 
He accepted his lone offer to continue pitching for a NAIA school after that season, but before reporting, he decided to take a chance on himself instead. 
 
"I knew I was better than what I was giving myself. So, I got Tommy John surgery on Aug. 10, 2018," Stevens said. "The day after surgery I was in the gym, in a cast, doing as much as I could. I rehabbed an entire year at home. You learn a lot about yourself, about how bad you want it when you're on your own, throwing into nets and fences. Year to year, I had two options in those situations: either call it quits or do what you gotta do. It's been a ride, but I found the drive. It honestly comes from my dad always saying when I was younger, 'If you want something, you have to work for it.'" 
 
Stevens did what he had to do to get back into college baseball. He sent emails to coaches across the country asking them to watch him throw a bullpen. Nobody paid him any attention, except for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros head coach Derek Matlock. While in Arizona for the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) tournament, Matlock made the drive to Tucson to meet Stevens. 
 
"He had a big downhill arm, physical kid, threw a ton of strikes. You could tell he wasn't 100% because of Tommy John but I got after him right there to get him down here," Matlock said. "We took a chance and called him and said, 'We can't give you money, but come walk-on and earn money.' He showed up on campus and from that minute on, it was over. He kicked the door down."  
 
Throughout the fall 2019 semester, many expected redshirt junior RHP John Henry Gonzalez would be UTRGV's Friday night starter. Stevens believed differently.  
 
"I wanted to be the ace. I wanted the biggest role. I didn't want to just be here," Stevens said. "I would tell Coach Matlock all the time, 'I'm the Friday night starter,' and he would just brush it off. Then the Wednesday before opening night, Matlock finally said that I was starting Friday. I went out and did what I did and ran with it from there." 
 
On Feb. 14, 2020, Stevens made his first start at the NCAA Division I level over 22 months after his last collegiate outing. His opening night nod took some by surprise, but when he left the mound at UTRGV Baseball Stadium that Friday night, there was no questioning why he was awarded the honor. 
 
Stevens tossed five hitless innings against Kansas State with nine strikeouts. The only baserunner in his outing reached on an error in the second inning, then Stevens retired the next 12 Wildcats he faced. Stevens and Gonzalez combined for a one-hitter as UTRGV rolled to a 5-0 victory. 
 
Stevens remained UTRGV's Friday night starter for the remainder of his career. He finished with an 18-7 record and 2.99 ERA after pitching 195.2 innings in 33 starts. His 228 career strikeouts are the sixth-most in program history. He boasted a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4:1 and held opponents to a .226 batting average. 
 
There's a coaching philosophy Matlock learned from Jim Schlossnagle while the two worked together at TCU, saying student-athletes should get seven percent better from year to year. Stevens' hard work and consistent growth is the perfect example of that. He went from throwing 86-88 miles per hour his first year at UTRGV, to hitting 90-92 MPH, to sitting 92-95 MPH his final season. 
 
"You talk about how people say kids should grow in college, and he's done it to a T," Matlock said. "He was a freak in the weight room. His ability to buy into the process was outstanding. He's a very competitive guy, really hard-working and detailed. He's a great story of a kid who was a nobody and absolutely took detail of his craft to become a really good pitcher." 
 
Stevens expected to be drafted during the 2022 MLB Draft, not looking to be a top-two rounder, but sure he'd be taken after meeting with teams. Early on Day Two of the draft, a team asked if he would take less money to be a top-10 rounder. 
 
"I said, 'Just say my name and we'll go from there,'" Stevens said. 
 
But he didn't hear back. His agent kept calling, saying a lot of people were asking if he was going to sign, but nobody picked him up that middle day. 
 
"I'm watching all of Day Three, and I'm getting calls, and then my agent calls as the last round comes around and says, 'I have no clue what's going on,'" Stevens reminisced. "At that point, it was like, where do we go from here? I thought I did everything I was supposed to do, and it felt like it kind of got taken away from me." 
 
The UTRGV staff was perplexed, too. Assistant coach Robert Martinez, who recruited Stevens in high school while he was coaching at Howard, recalled sitting in the coach's office calling scouts asking, 'Why aren't you taking this kid?' 
 
When the draft ended with the righty still on the board, a disappointed Stevens drove straight to the gym. He had a contract in place to play with a Mexican league team, and just as he was preparing to flip the switch mentally and run with that opportunity, he got the once-in-a-lifetime call. 
 
"Brian Rhees, the south Texas scout for the New York Yankees, calls me and says, 'I'm with the front office right now and I want to get you to be a Yankee,'" Stevens said. "He calls me back, offers me a contract, and says 'I believe in you.'" 
 
Stevens signed a free agent contract with the Yankees organization on July 19, 2022. 
 
"I thought, 'here's one team that wants to give me the chance,'" Stevens said. "The same way I did in college, I went in with a chip on my shoulder believing I'm supposed to be here." 
 
Stevens made his professional debut on August 22, 2022 with the rookie-level Florida Complex League (FCL) Yankees and was promoted to the single-A Tampa Tarpons on Aug. 31. He came out of the bullpen in five games, tallying three strikeouts and a 7.71 ERA while allowing eight hits in 4.2 innings of work. 
 
"My first couple times out, it was like, I have no clue what I'm doing. It's the seventh inning and I'm having to get hot," he said with a laugh. "But it was a fun adjustment going into those high-intensity situations. Being in those big moments, being called on is something you want. You still have to make pitches. You still have to get outs. It's still baseball. You just have to control the moment." 
 
It's all but solidified that he'll be a reliever in professional baseball. Gone is his routine of throwing a Tuesday bullpen and starting Friday. Until he reaches Double A and can throw back-to-back games, he'll get two days off after he pitches in a game, then he's hot again. He's learning to balance his workouts and felt things start to click during fall instructional league. Stevens is aiming to become the sixth UTRGV baseball alum to reach the major leagues as a player. 
 
Stevens returned to the Valley in December to train before leaving for spring training in Tampa on March 1. He enjoyed competing against the talented Vaqueros hitters, like Steven Lancia, who he consistently has good battles with, Zerek Saenz, Montclair Cain and Brandon Pimentel. He said the way UTRGV's lineup flips from righties to lefties is similar to a professional lineup and helped him focus on executing pitches. The Vaqueros benefited because they won't see a pitcher better than Stevens this season, Matlock said.
 
One of Stevens' former teammates, Jacob Hirsh, is now the volunteer analyst for UTRGV. Hirsh charted the minor leaguer's progress with tracking technology such as Yakkertech. 
 
During one of Stevens' final outings in February, Hirsh recorded his average fastball velocity at 97 mph. His peak velocity was 100.2 mph. He has an induced vertical break (IVB), which is one of the most important metrics for fastballs, of 16 inches – an elite MLB fastball features an 18-20 inch IVB. His average spin rate is 2400 revolutions per minute (RPM), which puts him above the big-league average. Stevens' slider has reached 90 mph with an IVB of 6.6 inches and a horizontal break of -6.1 inches – similar metrics to another pitcher in the Yankees organization, Gerrit Cole. 
 
"To put it simply, his fastball is already better than a big-league fastball," Hirsh said. "It's going to be one of the best at the level he's at this year. They're going to expect a lot out of him." 
 
Matlock and Martinez want the organization's pitching coaches to push Stevens. He's 25 years old, which is advanced for a baseball prospect, and his start to the season with the single-A Tampa Tarpons is delayed due to a rehab stint. But having obstacles in front of him has never stopped Stevens before. In fact, they motivate him. 
 
"I recruited him since he was a chubby little kid. A lot of people thought I was crazy, but there was something about him I liked," Martinez said. "He just works hard. It's the character of him. If you say he can't do it, he's going to do it. They're going to try to push him because of his age. If he produces right, if he gets outs, he could be a September call-up. It just comes down to him." 
 
The biggest lesson in Stevens' story is that he never quit, Matlock said. He loves to be challenged. He loves to overcome. He loves to compete. 
 
Stevens thanked Matlock, Martinez, his junior college pitching coach Jerry Dawson and the entire UTRGV community for supporting him over the years and helping him push through tough times to get to this point in his career. He said it's special to know he was part of UTRGV baseball's turnaround and he's thankful for the years he spent representing the Vaqueros. 
 
As he chases his MLB dream, Stevens will look back on his career and know that he can reach his goals even when times get hard, because he already did at UTRGV. 
 
"It's pretty much the same exact story, my college career and pro baseball journey," Stevens said. "I just needed a chance. I got that here at UTRGV. And when the Yankees called, it was like, there's my chance. At this point, it's all on me, depending on what I do and how I perform. As long as I have this chance, I'm going to run with it." 

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