Lucas Sims was standing on a headrest when the Carolina Mudcats team bus crashed on its right side in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, May 12. So when he says this minor league season has been “a roller coaster,” it doesn’t sound all that cliche.
Sims was one of the six Mudcats’ players who landed on the disabled list after the bus accident, and all but one of them (Tyler Brosius) are active again. Not only has Sims returned to the mound in recent weeks, he just got promoted to Double-A Mississippi.
Sims debuted for Mississippi on Tuesday, giving up two runs run in four innings of a 4-2 win, and is scheduled to get his second start on Sunday against Mobile.
“It’s definitely been wild,” said Sims, the Braves’ 2012 first-round pick out of Brookwood High School, who is ranked their No. 5 prospect by Baseball America. “You never know what you’re going to get out of this game. It’s definitely been keeping me on my toes. It’s a season I’ll never forget.”
Sims was coming back from the bathroom in the back of the bus around 3:30 a.m. before the crash. He was trying to be considerate of his teammates who were sleeping all around him. Climbing over them along the tops of reclined seats seemed to be his best route, right up until he heard the bus driver start yelling.
“I looked up and we were taking on grass,” Sims said. “It got really bumpy and the next thing I know I got thrown into one of the (luggage) cubbies. I slammed my hip pretty good right into one of those.”
Sims felt significant pain in his right hip. “I thought my hip was shattered,” he said.
Sims said once everybody on the bus was accounted for and they realized nobody’s injuries were life-threatening, the players and staff were calm and simply focused on getting people off the bus. Sims was one of the last people off because he had to wait until firemen and EMTs arrived and could get him onto a board to maneuver him out of the emergency exit at the top of the bus.
He was taken to a nearby hospital where he got a CT scan to make sure there were no internal injuries. He was relieved to find out he just had a severe bruise. Some pain medicine and a pair of crutches and he was on his way.
Sims spent about a month at the Braves’ complex in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. waiting out the stiffness in his hip and eventually building back up in his throwing program. “Once everything cleared up, I was fine,” Sims said. “At that point it was just getting stretched back out and ready to go pitch.”
After a couple of rehab appearances in the Gulf Coast League, Sims returned to Carolina. His second scheduled start was on a road trip back to Myrtle Beach.
Sims tweeted a photo from where he was seated on the team bus and said “Back at it … wish me luck.” He followed it up with a tweet that said, “just hoping this bus doesn’t flip like the last one I was on.”
Nothing like a little humor — not to mention taking a route on four-lane highways this time, rather than the two-lane detour they took in May — to get him through the trip.
Now Sims hopes his second start for Mississippi goes a lot like his last one for Carolina. After pitching with a little extra energy in his first two starts back for the Mudcats, Sims limited Winston-Salem to one run in six innings before earning a promotion. In his Double-A debut Tuesday in Jackson, Sims was a little amped up again and walked a season-high six batters.
“It was probably a little bit of adrenaline,” Sims said. “I was excited. I haven’t got a chance to watch (film) yet, but I’m assuming I was probably rushing.”
Sims is 3-4 with a 5.51 ERA in 12 starts combined in High-A and Double-A, but the numbers are just a reflection of all the ups and downs. Sims had gotten on a roll on the mound with two of his best two starts of the year before the team bus crashed. Now he’s got a chance to test out his dynamic fastball and curveball at the Double-A level.
It’s hard to blame him for being excited.
“I’m just glad to be back out on the mound and competing,” Sims said. “A lot of things have happened this year. But at the end of the day, I’ve felt like it’s made me a better player, a better pitcher.”
