Eli Whitney | June 24, 2026

The first thing Brennan Bernardino noticed about Jimmy Herget was the arm slot. He had never seen anyone throw like that. Funky, he said. Great stuff. Just nothing he had seen before.

​That was the fall of 2015, instructional league, both of them freshly drafted into the Cincinnati Reds organization – Herget in the sixth round that summer, Bernardino the year before in the twenty-sixth. They played together in instructs, and the following year, they were both assigned to Daytona. At some point, the way these things happen in the low minors, they started looking for a place to live, pooled their money with a few other guys, and ended up in a two-bedroom house with five people jammed into it. Bernardino, Aristides Aquino, and one other guy slept on the living room floor. Herget had the truck, which meant he drove.

​“We all piled up into his truck,” Bernardino said, grinning. “That worked out really well.”

​Herget remembers the same details with the same affection. The $500 paychecks every two weeks. The Florida heat in the summer. The Dominican roommates who kept them fed.

​“A lot of people think minor league life is you’re playing baseball, it’s fun,” Herget said. “For the most part, it is, but it is very much a grind.”

​They played together in multiple seasons – Daytona, then Pensacola – before the Reds released Bernardino in July 2018. Herget stayed and made his major league debut in 2019. Bernardino, meanwhile, went to Mexico. What happened next to each of them is the kind of story that gets lost in the daily transaction wire but defines an entire career when you zoom out and look at it whole.

Bernardino went to the Mexican League, dropped his arm slot – went from over the top to a low, sweeping delivery that bore an uncanny resemblance to the guy he used to room with – and eventually found his way to affiliated ball again. He debuted with Seattle in July 2022 at age 30, after eight years in professional baseball. Herget kept moving too – five organizations over the course of his career, never quite finding a permanent home, always fighting to stay until reaching Colorado.

​“Everybody has a different path,” Herget said simply.

​They stayed in loose touch through the years. When Bernardino’s arm slot changed, Herget noticed immediately.

​“When we played together, he was very over the top with a big curveball, a normal 12-6, very high spin rate,” Herget said. “And then he drops down and becomes this sweeper guy.” He laughed. “Sweepers are all the rage.”

​Bernardino’s version of the story was more concise.

​“I’m just trying to be the left-handed Jimmy,” he said.

​And now, somehow, they are here together. Lockers at Coors Field, both of them pitching for the Colorado Rockies, both of them old enough to be veterans in a clubhouse full of young players finding their way.

​“We’re the old guys on the team now,” Bernardino said, shaking his head. “It’s so strange. But it’s been a blessing.”

​What makes this more than a feel-good story is what it took to get here. The floors. The trucks. The release. The detours through leagues most fans have never heard of. The arm slot changes, the mechanical reinventions, and the years of wondering whether it was ever going to click. Neither of them took a straight line to a big league bullpen. Neither of them was handed anything.

​“I always knew Jimmy was going to be a big leaguer,” Bernardino said. “But I was like – all right, I’m trying to grind to get here too. And I’m happy I made it.”

​There is something Bernardino said near the end of the conversation that stayed with me. Herget has been with him the whole time – not always in the same city, not always on the same team, but present in a way that people who knew you before any of it happened are always present.

​“He’s seen my son go from two years old to thirteen years old,” Bernardino said. “This game has been really good to me. I’ve met really good people.  And Jimmy’s definitely at the top of that list.”

​Ten years ago, they were sleeping on mattresses on the floor of a house in Daytona. Now they’re closing out big league games at altitude, lockers just a few feet apart, still grinding. The route was long. They got here anyway.